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* UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. J 



The Baptizing of Infants 



DEFENDED FROM THE 



Objections of Anti-Pjido-Baptists. 



BEING AN ANSWER TO 



'A TREATISE ON INFANT BAPTISM, BY T. H. PRITCHARD, D. D. 
PASTOR OF THE RALEIGH BAPTIST CHURCH." 



R^S. "mason, D.D., 

R&ctor of Christ Church, Raleigh, N. C. 




NEW YORK: 

E. J. HALE & SON, PUBLISHERS, 
Xo. 17 Murray Street. 

1874. 



Washing 



EfJ 






Eutered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 

MRS. MARY MASON. 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Wiishington. 



La>gk, LnTLK &. Co., 

PRINTERS, EI.ECTKOTVPBP.S AND STKKEOTVPKXS, 

108 TO 114 WocsTKR Strbet, N. Y. 



INTEODUCTOKY OBSEEVATIONS. 



The author of the following tract, the Eev. Dr. 
R S. Maso]S", having been called to his rest before 
the completion of the work, allowance must be 
made for some things omitted, and some expressed 
otherwise than his careful review and finishing hand 
would have left them. In his last hours, speaking 
of those opinions and views which he desired to 
have published, to further the cause of scriptural 
truth, and the peace and prosperity of the Church, 
he said : " But everything ought to be written in 
the most kindly and conciliatory manner." 

In the matter of what he left, no change has been 
made, but only in the manner of expression, in a 
few places. Whatever has been added is indicated 
by [ ] brackets. 

There appear to be several preliminary considera- 
tions, proper to be attended to before examining the 
proposed subject, in order to place the mind in its 
right attitude. 

1. The question is not whether there is such an 
institution as Infant Baptism, no more than wheth- 



4 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 

er there is such an institution as Adult Baptism, 
there being as much authority for one as for the 
other in Holy Scripture, and no more. But the 
question is properly, whether infants are to be ex- 
cluded from Baptism, and so from the Church and 
kingdom of God, as visibly known on earth, or 
whether there is no just ground for this proceeding. 
'Tis for the rights of the Innocents. 

2. It is to be observed that, whereas the Anti- 
Psedo-Baptists speak of the conditions on which 
Baptism is to be received (or given), as found in 
Scripture, most of the places alleged are not proper 
for their purpose, none sufficient. In Mark xvi. 16, 
" He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, 
he that believeth not shall be damned," the terms 
of salvation, or of an externally and visibly ratified 
covenant of salvation, are stated, not the qualifica- 
tions of Baptism. So in John iii. 5 : " Except (any 
one) a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he 
cannot enter the kingdom of God," the terms of 
entering, or the conditions without which one can- 
not enter the kingdom of God, are stated. " Repent 
and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of 
Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall 
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Acts ii. 38. 
Here are the terms on which remission of sins and 
the gift of the Holy Ghost are ofi'ered to certain 
persons — most, if not all of them, men who had 
come from many places to the feast at Jerusalem. 
But if any one asks, '• What are stated in Scripture 
to be the terms or qualifications on which Baptism 
is to be received, without whicli it is not to be ? " 
the answer must be, they are not stated, but infer- 



I^sTTEODUCTOKT OBSERVATION'S. 5 

red. But suppose any quote tlie question of the 
eunuch, in Acts viii. 36, '' What doth hinder me to 
be baptized?" and the answer, "If thou believest 
with all thine heart thou mayest." Yet, this is not 
a statement of the terms on which Baptism was to 
be received in general, but a decision upon the case 
of that man, who appears to have been from a 
heathen country. To found a universal rule upon 
this is to found it upon an inference, which may be 
warrantable, or unwarrantable. The qualifications 
or terms upon which Baptism is to be received are 
not stated in Holy Scripture, but depend upon the 
character and circumstances of the person con- 
cerned. 

3. It is a fundamental question that ought to be 
decided in every one's mind, and felt in his heart, 
whether the Church on earth resembles a human 
society or club, into which members are admitted 
solely on the judgment of its members, that the 
new member is prepared, at the time, to perform all 
the functions of any member, so that the strength 
and influence conferred by each new member on the 
society is the principal thing ; or whether the bene- 
fits mercifully conferred by God, in the Church, are 
the chief, though not the only thing to be thought 
upon. Or, more particularly, is Baptism merely a 
mark of profession? Or does God in it promise to 
give anything, any blessing, any spiritual good? 
and is not an infant in need of, and capable of the 
blessing, and the spiritual good? But say that he 
may grow up and show himself a rejecter of it. So 
may a person baptized in adult age. 

The following pages are published under the full 



6 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 

persuasion that the facts, stated as such, are so en- 
tirely correct, and the selection and arrangement of 
them so remarkable, as must be exceedingly valua- 
ble in removing from many minds doubts aud difiB- 
culties, caused by objections raised by Anti-Paedo- 
Baptists ; and that, though all the opinions^ herein 
expressed, may not be agreed to by all, the fads, as 
supported by Scripture and history, cannot be dis- 
puted, nor the arguments deduced from them, ae 
establishing the Baptizing of Infants, confuted by 
any one. Eespect for his venerated memory has 
prevented the attempt to add anything more, from 
a less worthy hand, than seemed necessary. 

K. H. M. 



BAPTIZING OF IJSTANTS 
DEFENDED. 



Dk. Thomas H. Peitchaed: — 
Keveeen"d Sie: 

I have read carefully your tract against Infant 
Baptism, and as soon as other occupations fairly 
permit, I begin my reply. But before proceeding 
to the main subject, and to the consideration of 
your argument, I think fit to make a few prelimi- 
nary remarks on your manner of conducting this 
controversy. 

You state on the first page of your Preface, 
" Thus far the controversy has been conducted, in 
the main, with marked courtesy, and in an excellent 
spirit." And, again, on page 115, you say you 
" have written kindly and courteously." So far as 
you are concerned in this controversy, I cannot 
agree with you ; for on page 33, you style certain 
arguments as disreputable, and say that (p. 34) " Any 
brain that could put two and two together, could 
here find authority for the communing of females," 
by which you would represent us as either false or 
foolish, or both, according as the disreputable ap- 
plies to our sincerity or intelligence. On page 86, 
and elsewhere, you endeavor to exhibit us as here- 



8 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

tics — US holding what you call the heresy of Bap- 
tismal Eegeneraiion. I wouder how long since this 
name was given to it, even by Baptists ? You try 
to represent, but, of course, without proof, that 
''Infant Baptism has covered Germany with the 
dead corpse of a baptized infidelity " (97) ; and by 
your quotation from Baptist Noel, you appear to 
rank the Church of England no higher. Do you 
regard the Episcopal Church in this country in the 
same light? I dare say. But what of the Presby- 
terians, Methodists, and Independents, both of Eu- 
rope and this country, are they also so corrupt ? 
You represent, again, that many who remain in 
Psedo-Baptist churches do not believe in Infant Bap- 
tism, and, that in remaining '• connected with Paedo- 
Baptist churches, are false to God and his truth in 
so doing." Now, whatever you may think of this 
manner of speaking of us, I think it very scant 
courtesy. 

Further, you have made assertions which are cer- 
tainly incorre(5t. I cannot suppose one held in 
such, and no doubt, deserved esteem, in the com- 
munity, would wilfully misrepresent; but you 
have probably too implicitly and carelessly followed 
the guides to whom you candidly confess yourself 
so much indebted, or else are strangely unacquaint- 
ed with common facts of literature and ecclesias- 
tical history. Thus, you speak of Coleridge, the 
metaphysician and poet, as being an Episcopal cler- 
gyman. I supposed every one, at all acquainted 
with the writers of the present century, knew some- 
thing of the history of Coleridge ; and this is the 
first time I ever heard he hacl been in orders. 



BAPTIZING OF li^FAls^TS DEFENDED. 9 

Yon tell us Gregory the Great was born A. D. 328. 
Gregory the Great lived in the latter part of the 
sixth century. I never heard that he was more 
than two hundred years old at the time of his 
death, nor know w^here to find the particulars you 
mention of him. You have, no doubt, confounded 
him with another Gregory. I supposed a reader of 
the history of England during the Saxon Heptarchy, 
to say nothing of ecclesiastical history, would have 
known who Gregory the Great was. There are 
other mistakes which you have strangely made, that 
shall be noticed in their place. 

Thi]-dly, you make quotations from authors, but 
do not always tell us where they are to be found; 
how, then, can we be sure they are correct ? And 
from the manner in which the guides you so implic- 
itly follow deal with Tertullian, I cannot have too 
much confidence in their assertions. You quote 
from Coleridge a terrible denunciation of Infant 
Baptism. Where does he say so ? I do not suppose 
he was a very firm believer in Infant Baptism, but 
a passage, to follow below, from his " Aids to Eeflec- 
tion," on the subject of Infant Baptism, is hardly 
consistent with the passage you adduce as taken 
from him. 

Fourthly. You have twice quoted Bishop Taylor, 
once on p. 27, and again on p. 66. In the first of 
these quotations — as my opinion of your character 
would lead me to believe — you seem ignorant of the 
fact that the words are taken from his " Liberty of 
Prophesying," in which he avowedly set forth the 
Anti-Paedo-Baptist's argument against Infant Bap- 
tism. These arguments were fully answered by Dr. 



10 BAPTIZIN'G OF INFAin:S DEFEN"DED. 

Hammond, and afterwards by the bishop himself. 
The second quotation is, according to Dr. Wall, in 
the bishop's " Dissuasive from Popery," and not 
from his "Liberty of Prophecy," but you have 
omitted what is a very important part of the bish- 
op's opinion, " That it is proved enough from Scrip- 
ture as to the lawfulness." (See Wall's " History of 
Infant Baptism," vol. 2, ch. 2.) 

Further, you make many assertions of which you 
give no proof. For instance, on page 79, you cite a 
number of cases of persons not baptized till adults, 
whose .fathers and mothers were Christians at the 
time of their hirths. Not a single case of all the 
list have you attempted to prove, nor, indeed, can 
you. There is one case on record of the kind, but 
very doubtful ; you have mistaken the case, how- 
ever, and I certainly shall not set you right, but 
leave you to find out the mistake yourself 

Lastly, I think I have great reason to find fault 
with your want of fairness in dealing with us. You 
wish, evidently, to represent Infant Baptism as lead- 
ing to irreligion and immorality, and, among- other 
instances, you represent some of its advocates, at 
least, as being the patrons, because its advocates, of 
grog-shops and gambling houses. To deal with us 
justly, why did you not adduce the condition of the 
different bodies of Christians in this city, or in this 
State, and show how much superior the Baptists, as 
you call yourselves, are in piety and morals to the 
others, to the Presbyterians, Methodists, Eoman 
Catholics, Episcopalians? How much more devout 
towards God ! how much more true and just in all 
their dealings towards man ! how much more chaste 



BAPTIZIl^G OF IKFANTS DEFENDED. 11 

and temperate ! How studiously in their revivals 
they take care that those who, after a life of gross 
sin, profess repentance and faith for baptism, shall 
for six months or a year give proof that their repent- 
ance and faith is true, and that their profession of 
them arises from neither mere excitement nor a pass- 
ing sympathy, nor something worse ; and that whilst 
the four communions mentioned above are the noto- 
rious patrons of grog-shops and gambling saloons, 
the so-called Baptists were as notorious for their 
abhorrence of all such things ! But instead of bring- 
ing examples from those around .you, which, of 
course, you could not, you travel us off into Ger- 
many, no one knows where — do you know yourself? 
— to charge upon Infant Baptism that which is 
plainly, if it exist at all, the consequence and per- 
version of a state establishment of religion. As 

From these remarks I pass to the main subject, 
the divine authority for the baptizing of infants. 

It is manifest that the Jews, at the coming of our 
Saviour, must have been well acquainted with the 
practice and initiatory character of Baptism, for the 
Scribes and Pharisees, sent to demand of John the 
Baptist his object in baptizing, do not ask, " What 
are you doing ? What rite or ceremony is this you 
are practicing ? " But, why do you practice it ? If 
he had been Elias (Elijah, Mai. iv. 5), or that 
prophet (Deut. xviii. 15, 19), the Messiah, the 
Christ, they could have understood his baptizing ; 
but as he disclaimed being any one of these, they 
demanded why he practiced this rite, and practiced 



12 BAPTIZING OF I]S^FANTS DEFENDED. 

it in the instance of Jesus. (See Lightfoot, "Ilor. 
Heb./' on Matt, iii., v. 6, obs. 2, and Mosheim, *• De 
rebus Christianorum ante Con./' § 5, p. 67.) That 
this notion of an initiatoiy baptism was really en- 
tertained by the Jews, we learn from their own au- 
thors. " By three things," says Maimonides (the 
great interpreter of the Jewish rites), ''was Israel 
brought into covenant, by circumcision, by baptism, 
and by sacrifice." With this practice of baptism 
agree the words of the Apostle St. Paul, who, being 
a " Pharisee, and the sou of a Pharisee," and " brought 
up at the feet of Gamaliel," must have been well ac- 
quainted with all the Jewish rites and ceremonial 
practices : "' Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye 
should be ignorant how that all our fathers were 
under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and 
>vere all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the 
sea " (1 Cor. x. 1, 2). Thus the Talmud, in which 
the rites and ceremonies of the Jews are set forth, 
says, '"Israel," that is, the Israelites, "do not enter 
into covenant but by these three things, by Circum- 
cision, and Baptism, and Peace-oflfering." (2. ) 

As the native Jews were thus said to be originally 
entered into covenant with God by baptism, as well 
as by circumcision, so baptism was deemed neces- 
sary, as well as circumcision, for the admission of 
proselytes into the Jewish covenant. Thus it was a 
common axiom, that no one was a proselyte until he 
Avas circumcised and baptized. And when it was 
disputed what constituted a proselyte, whether he 
that was circumcised and not baptized were a prose- 
lyte, Piabbi Eliezer replied, " Yes ; for we thus find, 
respecting our fathers," as Abraham and Isaac, 



BAPTIZIN^G OF I]S"PAKTS DEFENDED. 13 

"that they were circumcised, and not baptized." 
But suppose him baptized, and not circumcised, 
what to say of him ? Kabbi Joshua replies, " He is 
a proselyte, for we thus find it to be the case with 
women, who are baptized, but not circumcised." But 
the wise men say, " Is he baptized, and not circum- 
cised, or is he circumcised, and not baptized, he is 
not a proselyte until he be both circumcised and 
baptized." And, again, " When a Gentile wishes to 
betake himself to the covenant of Israel, and to be 
received into fellowship, and to place himself under 
the wings of the Divine Majesty, and to take upon 
himself the yoke of the law, circumcision, baptism, 
and a voluntary oblation are required ; but if it be 
a woman, baptism and oblation." 

But they were in the custom to baptize infants 
most commonly with their parents. " If with a 
proselyte," says the Gemara, "his sons and his 
daughters are also made proselytes ; what has been 
done by the father turns out for their good." But 
Rabbi Joseph says, " When they may retract ; " the 
gloss on which is, " This is to be understood of little 
children who were made proselytes with their par- 
ents." And, again, " If a little child be deprived of 
its father, and the mother bring it to be made a 
proselyte, they baptize him according to the sen- 
tence " [or determination or rite] " of the Sanhe- 
drim, namely that thi-ee men be present who now 
stand to him in place of his father." Here we may 
see that the origin of sponsors was earlier even than 
the Christian religion [or dispensation]. Again, 
Eabbi Hezekiah, in the Jerusalem Talmud, says: 
" Behold, one finds an infant cast out, and baptizes 



14 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

him in tlie (nomine) name of a servant, do you also 
circumcise him in the name of a servant ; if in the 
name of a freeman, do you circumcise him in the 
name of a freeman ? " The distinction here made 
St. Paul may refer to in Gal. iii. 20: "There is 
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither lond nor 
free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all 
one in Christ Jesus." The Apostle does not say 
adult or infant, for no such disti?iction had ever ex- 
isted. And let it be further observed, that whatever 
may be said to explain away the baptizing of infants 
in the baptizing of the many households mentioned 
in the Acts, and in St. Paul's Epistles to the Corin- 
thians, St. Paul did recognize the baptizing of 
infants ; for when he speaks of a whole people be- 
ing baptized (1 Cor. x. 1, 2), infants must have been 
included. We talk of Adult Baptism and Infant 
Baptism, as if there were two kinds of baptism. 
There is but one. The adult is baptized on the 
profession of repentance and faith, and takes upon 
himself the obligations of the Gospel, and thus enjoys 
the blessings of the covenant of grace; the infant 
is baptized into the same covenant, to a subsequent 
repentance and faith, and to the same obligations of 
the Gospel, "when he comes of age to take them 
upon himself." Just as the Apostle informs us was 
the case with circumcision. " He that was circum- 
cised was a debtor to the whole law," whether adult 
or infant. And, as Lightfoot justly remarks, "That 
when the Anabaptists urged that, ^as there is no 
command to baptize infants [specially], that they 
ought not therefore to be baptized,' the answer is 
plain : There is no prohibition of their being bap* 



BAPTIZING OF li^EAKTS DEPENDED. 15 

tized, therefore they are to be baptized. And the 
reason is obvions. The baptizing of infants in the 
Jewish Church was so well known, and in such fre- 
quent use, that nothing could well be more known, 
or in more frequent use. When baptism was then 
adopted as an Evangelical Sacrament, there was no 
need of any command to establish it." When our 
Saviour, then, speaks of baptism to Mcodemus, in 
John iii. 5, or gives commission to his Apostles, in 
Matt, xxviii. 19, 20, to baptize all nations, and, in 
Mark, makes baptism one of the covenanted titles 
to [or one of the conditions precedent to a promise 
of] salvation, infants are no more excluded from the 
benefits of the sacrament than are adults ; there is 
no more express command to baptize adults than 
there is to baptize infants. 

Some learned men, Anti-Pasdo-Baptists especially, 
of course, have supposed that the custom of baptiz- 
ing the children of proselytes was not derived by 
the Christian Church from the Jewish practice, but 
that the practice among the Jews was derived from 
the Christians. Besides the exceeding improbability 
of this supposition, as I shall show directly, it would 
be of very little, if of any, advantage to your cause. 
It would but change the nature of the argument. 
The Talmud, from which the quotations, as given 
by Lightfoot, are taken, consists, according to Dean 
Prideaux, of two parts, the Mishna, which is the 
text, and the Gemara, the comment of the Jewish 
Doctors on the text. The Mishna, according to 
Dr. Prideaux, was compiled about the year 150 A. D., 
that is but fifty years after the death of St John, 
from traditions existing long before. 



16 BAPTIZING OF IIS'FANTS DEFENDED. 

Xow, the practice of baptizing infants being ex- 
pressly mentioned in the Mishna, if this practice 
among the Jews were derived from the Christians, 
it would make the practice very early and very gen- 
eral in the Christian Church, as early, indeed, as the 
Apostolic times. "If a girl," says the Jerusalem 
Mishna, "be made a proselyte" (that is, baptized), 
" after she is three years and a day old," she is not 
to have certain privileges. The Babylonish edition 
adds, "If she be made a proselyte " before that age, 
slie shall have those privileges. 

But there is utter improbability that the Jewish 
practice was derived from the Christian. The Jews 
hated Christianity too cordially to adopt any of its 
practices. They valued their Talmud too higlily, to 
make any additions to it, from such source. Besides, 
to become a proselyte, for the male three things, for 
the female two, were necessary ; for the male, cir- 
cumcision, baptism, and offering sacrifice ; for the 
female, baptism and sacrifice. Now, no sacrifice 
could be offered after the destruction of the temple. 
This proselyte baj)tism is plainly supposed then to 
exist during the time of our Saviour and his Apos- 
tles, during the temple service. And how familiar 
this idea of proselyte baptism, and of infant prose- 
lyte baptism, was to the mind of the Jew, in our 
Saviour's time, we may judge from the words of 
St. Paul, which I have before quoted from 1 Cor. x. 
1, 2. For certainly there were infants among those 
thus said by the Apostle to be baptized, and cer- 
tainly the Apostle does not exclude them any more 
than he excludes the adults. 

You adduce Bishop Burnet, and two distinguished 



BAPTIZIJs^Ct of IJq-FANTS DEFEi^DED. 17 

Presbyterian Divines, as confessing tliat there is no 
precept or rule in the New Testament for Infant 
Baptism [specially]. I am not so well acquainted 
with the writings of distinguished Presbyterian 
Divines as I could wish to be, and, therefore, cannot 
answer for them as I can, in a great degree, for 
Episcopal Divines, otherwise I might say for the 
former, as I do for the latter, that there was no neces- 
sity for your selecting Bishop Burnet, as confessing 
that there is neither rule nor precept, in the l^ew 
Testament, for baptizing infants [specially]. For 
I certainly never met with one, or heard of one, 
who ever said there was any such rule or precept. 
It would be strange indeed, humanly speaking, if 
there had been any such precept. Our Blessed Sa- 
viour has instituted in general terms; He has given 
no more special rule, or precept, for adult, than He 
has for infant baptism. The adult receives the holy 
seal, the blessed pledge, through baptism, of his 
glorious privilege of adoption into the family and 
household of God, on his profession of faith and 
repentance, because he is capable of them ; the in- 
fant receives the same glorious privilege, on the 
condition of subsequent repentance and faith, when 
he shall be capable of them. These the baptized 
child, when it comes to years of discretion, will 
openly profess in the rite of conjfirmation, when he 
or she shall voluntarily assume the obligations of 
the Christian covenant. I repeat, then, seeing that 
initiatory baptism for infants, as well as adults, [was] 
so well known, so commonly practised among the 
Jews, at the coming of our Divine Saviour, the de- 
mand is necessarily, not, " Where has our Saviour 



18 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

commanded ?" but, " Where has he forbidden infant 
baptism?" For, what plausible reason can be as- 
signed why he should command a practice so noto- 
rious, just as notorious as the baptizing of adults, 
tlie latter therefore being no moie commanded than 
the former ? If our Kedeemer had been pleased to 
say, " You, Avho are baptized yourselves, must have 
your children baptized," he would, it is to be pre- 
sumed, have considered this command requisite or 
proper ; but he has not done so, because, as far as 
we can see, this was totally unnecessary. And, there- 
fore, the baptizing of infants continues in the Chris- 
tian Church, since it existed at the coming of Christ, 
and by him is nowhere forbidden, either directly, 
or by implication, but on the contrary, there are 
indications, as well as direct proofs, that infant bap- 
tism was practiced duriug the time of the Apostles, 
proofs from Scripture, proofs from antiquity, and 
nothing against it. 

From Scripture. 1. I begin with John iii. 5. "'Ex- 
cept a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he 
cannot enter into the Kingdom of God." I shall not 
enter into a minute explication of this passage, as 
[that is] unnecessary. All I have to observe is that it 
was, till the time of Calvin, or perhaps of Wickliffe, 
universally interpreted of Baptism. I am not aware 
of any one exception. Even the Anabaptists them- 
selves, as you were originally called, or Anti-Pffido- 
Baptists as we now name you, adopted the ancient 
interpretation. (Calvin's '•Institutes," book iv., ch. 
16, § 25.) Xow most plainly these words of our 
Saviour do not exclude infants from baptism, but 



BAPTIZING OF IN'FAKTS DEFEN"DED. 19 

if the passage is to be interpreted of Baptism, re- 
quires it for them. " Except a man/' that is, any 
human being ; the literal translation being " Except 
any one be born of water and of the Spirit." 

2. The next passages are in Matt, xxviii. 19, and in 
Mark xyi. 15, 16. Supposing the latter genuine, 
these two commands must either have been given 
at the same time, thus constituting one command, 
of which St. Matthew takes the first part, and St. 
Mark the second part of the command ; or else they 
are distinct commands given one very soon after 
the other. To begin with St. Matthew. In our 
English version, the term teach is twice used, first 
as a verb, then as a participle. " Go teach all nations, 
baptizing them," etc., and "teaching them," etc. 
But as a scholar you know very well — do you not ? 
— that in truth, the first word, translated teach, and 
the second, translated teaching, are two entirely dif- 
ferent words ; that the first signifies to make, or re- 
ceive as a disciple, or pupil, according to the lexicons 
(see Parkhurst's, Liddell and Scott, and Kobinson's 
" Wahl "), and by general acknowledgment ; and that, 
therefore, the proper translation is " Make or receive 
as disciples all nations,* baptizing them, in the name 
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy G-host, 
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I 
have commanded you." ISTow this command of our 

[* Let any good Greek scholar be required to translate this 
sentence, " Make disciples of, or admit as disciples by bap- 
tizing," into Greek ; and he must do it with the words 
jj.aQrjTEv6atE ftaTtrl^oyvEi. What is the force of the im- 
perative aorist with the present participle ? Is it not instru- 
mentality or means ?] 



20 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

Saviour is so far from excluding infants, that it 
really includes them; for as it is for the discipleship 
of all nations, and no one, old or young is excluded, 
it follows all are to be admitted, first the parents 
then the children. You introduce the command 
from St. Mark with a great parade of assertion that 
it is the only specific command for baptism in all 
the Scriptures, by which assertion you ignore the 
passage from St. Matthew just recited, as well as 
that from St. John iii. 5, 6. In St. John it is ex- 
pressly declared ''Except a man (anyone) be born of 
water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the 
Kingdom of Grod." And in St. Matthew it is an 
express command to" baptize ; whereas in St. Mark 
it is not commanded, but declared to be a condition 
of Salvation, with belief. The proper command is 
in the first part of the sentence. It is a command 
of general import. The word used signifies the act 
of a herald. '*' Go, make proclamation of the Gospel 
throughout the world." As to belief preceding bap- 
tism, one or the other must have preceded, and as 
the whole world was at that time out of the Church, 
and before infants could be baptized their parents 
must be first baptized, and therefore our Saviour 
places believing before baptism. 

Xow remembering always how certainly the bap- 
tism of the infant children of proselytes was known 
and practised among the Jews, at th:it time, what 
Apostle would for a moment suppose that the com- 
mand of our gracious Eedeemer, so peculiarly gra- 
cious toward children, meant that children, infants, 
should be forbidden the blessings of the most gra- 
cious covenant of the Gospel? The extraordinary 



I 



BAPTIZIi?"G OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 21 

flourisli of trumpets, with which, your authority- 
Carson accompanies his remarks, is therefore " vox," 
or rather sonus, "et praeterea nihil." 

Further, the interpretation which you have 
adopted from your authority, Carson, contains its 
own refutation, and is therefore altogether unten- 
able; as thus, if by this commission faith must 
necessarily precede baptism, [or the baptism be in- 
valid] and there can be no valid baptism without 
faith, [in the recipient] then it would not be pos- 
sible to declare with certainty that any person had 
ever received Christian baptism ; for it is plain, the 
faith spoken of by St. Mark must be a saving and 
true faith. It may possibly, in some cases, be a 
hypocritical pretence of faith ; it may be a belief of 
one, as Simon the sorcerer, who is in the gall of bit- 
terness and bond of iniquity. "In these and other 
cases which might easily be brought forward, would 
the baptism be a true, a valid, or invalid baptism ? " 
What would you do in such a case, baptize the per- 
son a second time ? as for instance Simon the sor- 
cerer ? Suppose you found out in a very short time 
after baptism that the person you had baptized was 
really at the time of his baptism a hypocrite, or an 
infidel, or a self-deceiver, would you consider such 
baptism as invalid ? Perhaps you may say that it is 
a profession of faith which is required ; but then the 
words of the Gospel would run, " He that professes 
faith and is baptized shall be saved." But this 
would be indeed to re-write, as you say, the G-ospel, 
and not to interpret it. I insist then, that the inter- 
pretation, which your authority, Carson, gives to the 
words of St. Mark, of the necessity of faith, that is 



2;i BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

of saving faith before baptism, as it must necessarily 
be according to St. Mark, is perfectly untenable, for, 
except to the Searcher of all hearts, it would render 
any baptism uncertain, and in many cases to be re- 
peated, as I have been told has been done by some 
of your ministers. And when your authority says, 
that every time an unbelieving infant is baptized, 
faith and baptism are put asundeB^ so in like man- 
ner when a hypocrite and unbeliever, a Simon the 
sorcerer, or a self-deceived person, having no saving 
a^ith, is baptized, according to this reasoning it 
must be said that faith, true faith, saving faith, the 
faith of which St. Mark speaks, and baptism are put 
asunder, and as it cannot be known, but to the 
Searcher of all hearts, who has true faith, it becomes 
entirely uncertain w^hether any baptism is a real 
baptism, or no baptism. I must add that it looks to 
me very much like an impiety for any man holding 
a certain interpretation of Scripture, though the 
interpretation of his own sect, but contraiy to the 
interpretation of the rest of the Christian world, 
should declare ''he would gainsay an angel from 
heaven, who should say that this commission should 
extend to any but believers." * It looks to me very 
much like a determined, obstinate adherence to an 
opinion once assumed against all reasonable connec- 
tion to the contrary. 

3. I proceed next to the consideration of the 

[* Would lie gainsay an angel from heaven that should 
say this Salvation should extend to anr but (intelligent and 
professing) believers ? Would he gainsav an angel who 
should sav that this Salvation should extend to infants ? If 
not, -whv not ?] 



BAPTIZING OF IXFAXTS DEFENDED. 23 

passage from 1 Cor. vii. 14, as bearing directly on the 
subject of Infant Baptism. "For the unbelieving 
husband is sanctified (properly, it being the preterit 
tense, has been sanctified) by the [believing] wife, and 
the unbelieving wife is (has been) sanctified* by the 
[believing] husband, else were your children unclean, 
but now are they holy. To determine whether this 
passage contains any proof of infant baptism, it is 
plain we must ascertain the proper meaning of the 
word '•' holy " as applied here to children. 

Before doing so, however, I must take notice of the 
many gratuitous assertions you make, without one 
•particle of proof from this 7th chapter of 1 Cor., 
:.r from any other of St. Paul's writings. " The 
question was raised in the Church, whether this Jew- 
ish rule should not obtain in a Christian church ; 
that is, whether the Church ought not to decide that 
all who were out of the Church were unclean to those 
in the Church." In what part of this 7th chapter, 
or indeed in any other chapter of either epistle to 
the Corinthians, do you find this ? What authority 
have you for your assertion ? I supposed this mat- 
ter of the Gentiles being clean or unclean was set- 
tled among Jewish believers in the 10th and 11th 
of Acts, some time before either of the epistles to the 
Corinthians was written, and not one syllable has St. 
Paul given us of all you assert; not a syllable does 
he give of the unbeliever being unclean to the 
believer ; not a syllable that if the unbelieving wife 
is to be put away from the believing husband, on the 
ground of her unbelief, then you must have nothing 

* Compare 1 Cor. vii. 14, with 1 Cor. i. 2, in the Greek. 



24 BAPTIZING OF INFAXTS DEFEI?"DED. 

"to do with your children, for they will be unclean 
to you, siiice they are ii) the same condition of un- 
belief." Where does the Apostle say anything of the 
child's unbelief? Where again, I beseech you tell 
me, does he utter one syllable of the faith of one of 
the parties making a marriage ceremonially clean or 
holy ? And what do you mean by a ceremonially 
clean or holy marriage ? I am entirely at a loss to 
understand this new theology. And I certainly can 
retort upon you, with vastly more truth than you 
can employ against us, "But this is to re-write 
Scripture, not to interpret it." 

Let me see, then, if I cannot present such a just 
interpretation of this passage from Corinthians as 
will necessarily include the idea of the baptism of 
the holy children there mentioned. Taking all the 
applications of the word hagios, sometimes trans- 
lated holy, sometimes saint, we may consider it as 
implying separation — separation in the first and chief 
place from all that is contrary to moral excellence, 
and therefore the term is pre-eminently and in its 
infinitely perfect sense applied to the Great and in- 
finitely Perfect God, infinitely Perfect in all moral 
excellence, and thus our Saviour is called the Holy 
One, and the constant designation of the Third Per- 
son of the Adorable Trinity is the Holy Spirit or 
Holy Ghost. [Also that produceth separation or 
holiness. ] 2. From this idea of essential, moral holi- 
ness, those who are the faithful servants of God are 
spoken of as holy. John the Baptist, in Mark vi. 20, 
is called just and holy, and the angels are called the 
holy angels, and thus we are to present our bodies a 
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, Rom. xii. 1, 



BAPTIZING OF li^FANTS DEFE:N-DED. 25 

and ^' without holiness no man shall see the 
Lord." 

3. This idea of separation is carried out in the 
dedication of things or persons to the service of God. 
Thus there is in this separation or dedication of things, 
the Holy Temple and the Holy Vessels of the sanc- 
tuary, and the Holy Sabbath ; and, with respect to 
persons, there is the dedication of persons to the 
service of God, for special purposes ; as the Holy 
Apostles and Prophets, Avhich epithet of holy points 
out, perhaps, rather their separation or designation to 
their office than their essential holiness. Under this 
head is included the separation or dedication of per- 
sons to God, that they may become essentially holy, 
and serve God in faith and true obedience ; and thus 
the Apostle addresses the Christians at Ephesus, at 
Corinth, and at Kome, as saints, another transla- 
tion of the same word also translated holy (hagioi). 
And, in like manner, throughout the Acts of the 
Apostles. But that one human being is ever called 
holy, or a saint to any other human being, there is 
not a single example in all the New Testament, nor 
indeed in the Old either. " This is to re-write Scrip- 
ture, not to interpret it.^' 

Now, this holy character, this saintship, invaria- 
bly implies the baptism of those to whom it is 
applied. In all other places but the one in dispute, 
the saint or holy person is a baptized person ; and so 
it necessarily must be in the present case, no holy per- 
son, no saint, without baptism; therefore holy chil- 
dren or saints must be baptized children. (See Park- 
hurst's and Wahl's Lexicons on (dyio?) hagios; see 
alsoCambell's Dissertations on the same. Part iv., § 13.) 



26 BAPTIZING OF IXFANTS DEFENDED. 

I have begun with the word hagios (holy), or 
saint, first, as the chief and governing word of the 
passage, and the meaning to wliich, being once 
fully established, it would be of comparatively little 
moment how the rest might be interpreted. But I 
trust to make it appear that the proper interpreta- 
tion is in strict conformity with that given of 
" hagios," holy, or saint. The verb rendered in our 
version, in the present, " is sanctified," in the orig- 
inal Greek is in the preterit, or perfect tense, and is 
strictly to be translated, " has been sanctified," * 
and rhe preposition (ev) en, in the relation in which. 
it is employed, denoting instrumentality. (See Liddell 
and Scott's Lexicon, for the third meaning of the 
w^ord en.) The sentence is to be properly rendered, 
" For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified 
by the (believing) wife, and the unbelieving wife 
has been sanctified by the (believing) husband, else, 
etc." What the meaning of being sanctified is we 
may learn from St. Paul (1 Cor. vi. 11), " But ye 
are washed, but ye are sanctified." In this there is 
a plain allusion to baptism, and the being sanctified 
means clearly becoming Christians, ostensibly or 
truly. And so, indeed, the word is, everywhere in 
the 'New Testament, used in the same sense invaria- 
bly, except when it is applied to one of the Persons 
of the Trinity ; for then, of course, it is employed 
in a still more exalted sense. Show us, if you pos- 
sibly can, an example to the contrary. Then, again, 
with respect to the word (akathartos) [unclean], 

[* 1 Cor. i. 2, sanctified, 1 e., lias been (in certain instances) 
made a member of the visible Cliurch.] 



BAPTIZIXG OF IJ3"PANTS DEFENDED. 27 

Robinson's " Walil " gives us the true sense in tliis 
yery passage, " Xot to be reckoned among Christians, 
pagan." And the interpretation of the passage will 
be, '*For the unbelieving husband has been converted 
to Christianity by, or through the instrumentality 
of, the wife; and the unbelieving wife has been con- 
verted to Christianity [and brought into the Church] 
by the (believing) husband; else were your children 
pagans, but now are they saints," Christians, and so 
baptized. This interpretation, it will be seen, is in 
strict accordance with the 16th verse, "For what 
knowest thou, oh wife, whether thou shalt save thy 
husband ? or, ho\v knowest thou, oh man, whether 
thou shalt save thy wife ? " I have adopted Ham- 
mond's interpretation rather than that of Wahl 
(which see under hagiadso), as being more strictly 
in conformity with the use of the word in the 'New 
Testament ; but if any one should prefer WahFs, it is 
not in the least inconsistent with the interpretation 
he gives to what we translate " unclean " and " holy." 
The last use of this word hagios is where it is 
applied to those who are dedicated to God, to serve 
Him in essential holiness, in purity and truth of 
heart, and this must necessarily be the sense in 
which the word is used in reference to the children 
spoken of in 1 Cor. vii. 14. It cannot mean moral 
holiness, holiness of the heart of the inner man, 
for of that infants would be incapable. It cannot 
mean the holiness of dedication to a special office, 
for that would be a particular dedication. This 
is general. When, therefore, these children are said 
to be holy, it must mean dedicated to God, and as 
baptism was the mode of dedication, they must 



28 BAPTIZING OF IXFANTS DEFE:N-DED. 

have been baptized. See Campbell, as before (Part 
4 p. 13). ^ 

But, to make tliis matter still more clear and 
palpable, let it be observed that the English lan- 
guage being bilingual, that is, derived from two dif- 
ferent sources, Saxon and Latin, or, more properly 
speaking, Norman-French, our English version of 
the Scriptures not unfrequently renders the same 
word of Hebrew or Greek, m the New Testament, 
"With which we are now concerned, the same Greek 
word by two different words, one of Saxon, the 
other of Norman-French origin, as in the present 
example, the word translated holy is also translated 
samts. In homogeneous languages, as Latin, Ger- 
man, and the languages of Southern Europe, this is 
not the case; but the word is the same throughout. 
In examining Oruden's Concordance, we shall find 
the word " saints " occurs sixty times, a translation of 
the same word (hagios) in Corinthians translated 
holy. Omitting the first use of the term as relating 
to those who lived before the establishment of the 
Christian Church, we have fifty-nine instances of 
the term applied to those who were Christians, 
members of the Catholic Church of Clirist, and 
members by the sacrament of baptism. However 
we may employ the word '^ saint," in modern phrase 
ology, independently of the idea of baptism, it cer- 
tainly was not the case in the New Testament. The 
saint was necessarily a baptized person ; for, what- 
ever else might be included in the term hagios, or 
saint, he was a person dedicated to the ser°vice of 
the Holy Lord God our Saviour, and this dedication 
was made in baptism, and the hagios, or saint, was 



BAPTIZING OE IJS^FANTS DEFENDED. 29 

necessarily a baptized person — no one but a baptized 
person could be called a saint. Can this assertion 
be disputed ? Now, what possible reason can be 
assigned why the hagios, in 1 Cor. vii. 14, cannot be 
or should not be translated saints, as it is in those 
other fifty-nine places just now mentioned, so that 
the passage shall read, "Else were your children 
unclean, but now are they saints;" for, as I before 
observed, the word is the same in all homogeneous 
languages with which I have any, even slight, ac- 
quaintance. If it should be insisted that there is a 
difference betiveen a holy child and a saint child, 
let the difference be shown from any parallel passage 
of Scripture. If not, as certainly it cannot be, 
then why should not the saint or holy child, liagios, 
be as certainly a baptized person, as the fifty-nine 
other instances in the New Testament must neces- 
sarily, without all doubt, be spoken of baptized 
persons ; and thus we have clear proof, from palpa- 
ble inference, that Infant Baptism is, in the New 
Testament, of apostolic practice. 

The Anti-Psedo-baptists have been sorely puzzled 
to get rid of the evidence which this passage in Cor. 
affords for infant baptism. Sometimes it is at- 
tempted to interpret unclean and holy by illegiti- 
mate and legitimate. But besides such an interpre- 
tation being totally unauthorized by any other part 
of Scripture, illegitimacy and legitimacy are deter- 
mined not by the laws of the church, but by the 
laws of the State. Certainly the church, at that 
time, had nothing to do with the determination of 
that question, and your effort at explanation has 
been noticed above. 



30 BAPTIZING OF IXFAXTS DEFENDED. 

On page 8, you say, " This doctrine, (Baptismal re- 
generation) teaches that an innocent babe that has 
a few drops of water sprinkled upon it, accompanied 
by a few words from a minister, will go to heaven, 
but that the same innocent babe, without the water 
and the words, will go to hell." I do not like to 
characterize this assertion as I think it deserves, 
because I would avoid all harsh expressions, and 
prefer marking its character by argument. I an- 
swer first, that you hiave confounded together two 
things perfectly distinct, baptismal regeneration and 
baptismal salvation, or rather [the idea of there being] 
damnation to the unbaptized. Whether [those tak- 
ing your ground] have [any of them] purposely con- 
founded the two together to make the doctrine of 
Infant Baptism odious, or whether [they] have not 
been able to distinguish between them, I cannot 
undertake to say. That many of the fathers of the 
church held that infants could not attain to the 
kingdom of heaven, that is to the kingdom of heaven 
in the future state, unless they were members of the 
kingdom of heaven here, that is, unless they were 
baptized, there can be no doubt. But by no means 
did the majority of these believe in the damnation of 
unbaptized infants; but in a modified happiness. St. 
Austin, no doubt, with some of his followers, did 
maintain the opinion that as an unbaptized infant 
liad not original sin washed away by the waters of 
baptism, it must therefore be lost, and for this opin- 
ion he has been called, as he deserved, the hard 
father. But whatever difference of opinion may have 
existed on this subject, the future condition of the 
unbaptized, there was none on the subject of bap- 



BAPTiziiq-G OF i:n'fakts defended. 31 

tismal regeneration; it was universally, invariably 
held. You have yourself endeavored to show that 
Protestant Churches generally hold the doctrine of 
baptismal regeneration. That the Episcopal Church 
holds the doctrine [properly understood] there can 
be, in my opinion, no question ; for, '^ after the way 
which jou call heresy, so worship " ice " the God 
of our fathers." For it is the doctrine of Scripture, 
as will appear from John iii. 5, 6, and Titus iii. 5, 
and has been held by the church of Christ ever 
since, till of late days ; and even now held by at least 
one sect of Anti-Psedo-baptists, the followers of Camp- 
beli. But in what one of her creeds, or articles of 
faith, in what part of her Liturgical services, do you 
find her asserting the damnation of an unbaptized 
infant ? I challenge you to show in what writing, at 
what time, any one of her divines has made any such 
assertion, has delivered any such opinion ? I dare say 
I might make this challenge with regard to any 
Protestant Paedo-baptist. I cannot speak so confi- 
dently in respect to Eoman Catholic divines ; some 
may follow the opinion of St. Austin. I know of 
none. Pray tell me, does the assertion that we 
hold the doctrine which you attribute to Peedo- 
baptists, " that an innocent babe without the 
water and the words," that is, unbaptized, "will 
go to hell," form one of those material state- 
ments, for your belief in the truth of which you are 
ready to swear ? Then certainly you ought, for yonr 
own sake, to bring forward, if it be but even one 
Protestant divine who has anywhere made any such 
assertion. And if you cannot, as I am fully confi- 
dent you cannot, as regards any divine of the P 



32 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

E. Cliiirclij and I firmly believe you cannot of any 
divine of any other body of Protestants, [retract !]* 
You state, " It was this doctrine of Baptismal Re- 
generation which first originated Infant Baptism." 
Of this unfounded assertion you bring no proof 
whatever. I call on you to do it, if you can. I know 
you cannot. You have not told us in what work, 
still less in what part of any work, of [S. T.] Cole- 
ridge, the quotation you make is to be found. I 
doubt, if it exist, whether it is quoted correctly. I 
venture to say, that if it be a correct quotation, it 
will be found not a censure of the doctrine of In- 
fant Baptism, but of the uncharitable doctrine of 
the damnation of unbaptized infants, which you say 
belongs to us. Otherwise, Coleridge is entirely in- 
consistent with liimself, as will appear from the fol- 
lowing passage in his " Aids to Refiection," (page 292, 
Dr. McV.'s edition). "What more reverential than 
the application of this the common initiatory rite 
of the East, sanctioned and appropriated by Christ — 
its application, I say, to the very subjects whom He 
Himself commanded to be brought to Him — the 
children inarms, respecting whom Jesus was much 
displeased with His disciples, loho had rehiilced those 
that hr ought them. What more expressive of the 
true character of that originant yet generic stain, 
from which the Son of God, by His mysterious in- 
carnation and agony, and death, and resurrection, and 
by the baptism of the Spirit, came to cleanse the 
children of Adam, than the exhibition of the out- 
ward element to infants, free from and incapable of 

* See first Rubric in Amer. Prayer Book, in the order for 
the Burial of the Dead. 



BAPTIZrS^G OF rSTJLJTTS DEFENDED. 33 

crime, in whom the evil principle was present only, 
as potential being, and whose outward semblance 
represented the Kingdom of Heaven ?*' (See the 
whole article in Aids to Eeflection.) 

You say (p. 9), " that infants, if they die in uncon- 
scious infancy, will go to heaven, whether they have 
been baptized or not. They are saved by the aton- 
ing merits of the death of Christ.'' So far, I agree 
with you. And therefore, if I had ever been sub- 
jected to thegrievotLS misforttme of having a child 
die without baptism — ^thank my gracious Saviour I 
never [was] — ^then I could not beheve that the un- 
bounded mercies of Christ, through his •'• full, per- 
fect, and sufficient sacrifice," would, through my care- 
lessness, or willfulness, or delay, or through some un- 
avoidable misfortune, be utterly profitless to the 
poor unoffending babe. But there wotild be this 
difference, to me, between the unbaptized and the 
baptized ; that for the unbaptized dying, I should 
infer, generally, that the mercy of Christ was too 
botmdless for me to suppose it could be lost. But 
for the baptized, I should consider that baptism as a 
personal declaration, as if an angel from heaven, as if 
the most Holy Eedeemer himself stood by the font, 
and declared that the baptized child, should it die 
without forfeiting, or before it cotild forfeit, the 
grace of salvation, would undoubtedly be saved. See, 
then, what a difference there is between us, between 
your denomination and the Paedo-baptists. For the un- 
baptized we both infer, generally, the salvation of the 
dying infant, but for the baptized we have a personal 
assurance of that salvation, because that condition of 
which alone the infant is capable, baptism, has been 
complied with. 2 



34 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

While I am on this point, let me, as briefly as the 
subject will possibly admit, repel your assault on us 
for holding Baptismal Eegeneration. You pro- 
nounce it a heresy. Will you, then, inform me ex- 
actly what you mean by a heresy ? and why that 
doctrine is a heresy, which was held by the Apostle 
St. Paul (Titus iii. 5), — according to the interpreta- 
tion of Calvin,* which was held by our Saviour himself, 
( John iii. 5) ; if the invariable interpretation of the 
universal Church, till the time of Calvin, or perhaps, 
Wickliflfe, be correct, and which has been almost 
universally held by the Church of God ever since ? 

But further, you say, and say truly, that an un- 
baptized child dying is saved. Pray tell me, is it 
saved with or without the Spirit ? If without, then 
there will be finally, in heaven, two classes of per- 
sons, the infant without, and the truly believing 
and baptized adult with, the Spirit ; unless you can 
show that the Spirit is given between death and the 
resurrection, to the dyiug, unbaptized child. If you 
say it dies [blessed, or gifted] with the Spirit, then 
is this gift of the Spirit because it dies, or is it born 
with [the gift of the Spirit] in consequence of 
Christ's atonement ?] f Then all infants are born with 
the Spirit. Is this regeneration ? If not, in what 
does the possession of the Spirit differ from beiug 
born again, or regenerate ? Again, are infants at 
their birth members of God's family or not ? If 
they are, what constitutes their membership ? If 
not, then what is the meaning of our Saviour's 
words, "For of such is the kingdom of heaven ? " 

* I. 6., Calvin considers St. Paul to refer to Baptism in this 
ext. 

t Page 43. 



BAPTIZING OF II^FANTS DEFEifDED. 35 

Now, I do not hold that a child is born, or that any 
one can be a member of God's family [the Church on 
earth] till he has been baptized ; that although I 
fully believe, from the great mercy of God, that 
many adult persons, that all infants, dying unbap- 
tized, will be saved, yet that they are without the 
covenant of promise : that they have no sealed and 
signed title to the birth of the Spirit (see John iii. 
5, Titus iii. 5), to the forgiveness of si7is (see Acta 
ii. 38, etc.), to salvation (see Mark xvi. 16), suppos- 
ing this passage genuine (Titus iii. 5,1 Peter iii. 21), 
to sanctification (Eph. v. 26). 

I cannot suppose you would willfully misrepresent 
the true doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, but you 
appear to be so little acquainted with it, as held by 
the Episcopal Church, that I think it necessary to 
set it before you as contained in Article XXVII. 
" Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark 
of difference, whereby Christian men are discerned 
from those that be not christened ; but it is also a 
sign of Regeneration or New Birth : (1.) ' Whereby, 
as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism 
rightly are grafted into the Church ; (2.) the promises 
of the forgiveness of sin ; (3.) and of our adoption 
to be the sons of God, by the Holy Ghost, are visibly 
signed and sealed. Faith is confirmed, and Grace 
increased by virtue of prayer to God.^ (4.) The 
Church is the household of God, and into it we 
are admitted by Baptism. 

(1.) Jno. iii. 5 ; Tit. iii. 5 ; Acts. ii. 41-47 ; 1 Cor. xii. 13 ; 
Gal. iii. 37, &c. 
(3.) Acts ii. 38 ; xxii. 16 ; [Eph. v. 26 ; Heb. x. 23.] 
(3.) Gal. iii. 26, 27 ; [Mat. xxviii. 19 ; Eph. iv. 4, 5, 6.] 
(4.) Gal. iii. 27-vi. 10 ; Eph. ii. 19-iii. 18 ; Acts ii. 41-47. 



36 BAPTIZIKG OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

In the conclusion of St. Mark's Gospel, which, 
whether genuine or not, contains a doctrine in 
accordance with Holy Scripture, we find [that Bap- 
tism is made the condition of the positive promise 
of salvation]. 

From this article it is plain the Church compares 
the hopes and blessings which God confers on us 
through our Saviour to privileges and possessions 
intended to be conveyed by a deed of gift, or other 
legal document. The declaration in the document 
that such and such benefits and advantages are 
intended to be conferred or conveyed has no legal 
and binding force till the document is signed and 
sealed: so in our Christian relation, adoption by 
Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, with the gift 
of the Spirit, by which we cry Abba Father, the 
pardon of our sins and eternal life are promised to 
us through Jesus Christ; but we have no covenanted 
title to these promises and blessings till we are bap- 
tized, till we by this sacrament submit ourselves to 
the authority of our Lord and Saviour ; and Christ, 
on his part, receives us as members of his mystical 
body, the Church, of which he is the head ; consti- 
tutes us children of his family by adoption and 
grace, and promises us the heirship of eternal life, 
if we never forfeit it. The Christian life or char- 
acter consists of two parts. One consisting of those 
holy graces of repentance, faith, and love, bringing 
forth fruits unto eternal life, produced by the Spirit 
orkiug efiectually in us, " to will and to do of His 
good pleasure." The other of the external life, 
into which we enter and continue in covenant rela- 
tion with our great Lord God, through Christ Jesus 
our Eedeemer, through the holy positive institutions 



BAPTIZING OF IXFAXTS DEFENDED. 37 

of His Church, His mystical body. Baptism being 
the initiatory rite or sacrament, on His part, the 
incarnate Lord receiving us as His followers, and 
pledging to us all the blessings of the Christian cove- 
nant, if ^ye do not forfeit them, adoption, the gift of 
the Spirit, forgiveness of sins, heirship of eternal life. 
In the internal, essential part of the Christian 
life there is a distinction to be observed, which, it 
appears to me, is too commonly overlooked, the dis- 
tinction between the gift of the Spirit, and the effec- 
tual working of the Spirit. To a Calvinist, the gift 
of the Spirit implies the final effectual working of 
the Spirit; but to one not a Calvinist, the Spirit may 
be held to be given, and yet resisted, grieved, striven 
with, quenched, abused therefore, and not effectually 
to work in him to whom it has been given. Let us 
suppose one who never has been baptized, and who 
has led an ungodly life, to be truly converted, to 
possess sincere repentance and a true faith, and to 
desire Holy Baptism. The Church supposes neces- 
sarily not only that he has had the gift of the 
Spirit, for otherwise he could not begin a true re- 
pentance, but that also the Spirit has effectually 
wrought in him to produce that true repentance 
and sure faith which it is supposed has been wrought 
in him. But the Christian character of this person 
is not yet complete. He has not yet devoted him- 
self to the service of God by the way of God's 
appointment. He has not yet been formally re- 
ceived into the household and family of God ; he is 
not the child of God by covenanted adoption ; he 
has not the covenanted assurance of the forgiveness 
of sins. See the case of St. Paul, (Acts xxii. 15). 
He has not the covenanted heirship of eternal life 



38 BAPTIZII^G OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

(Mark xvi. 16) till he has been baptized, till he 
has been washed by the waters of the mystical Jor- 
dan, for his covenanted purification from the moral 
leprosy of sin. But suppose an unbaptized person, 
professing repentance and faith, should neglect or 
refuse baptism, from careless unconcern toward the 
sacrament, or Irom a false persuasion, as in the case 
of the Quaker, would there be no difference between 
the two — between him who had and him who had 
not received baptism ? God is graciously pleased 
not to tie himself to his own ordinances, and there- 
fore, while it is said, "He that believeth not shall 
be damned,'^ it is not said, " He that is not baptized 
shall be damned," the gracious and merciful Lord 
judging how far the unbaptized is to be or not to be 
excused. But there is no positive promise of Gospel 
hlessings without haptism. The Church, therefore, 
does not hold that the supposed truly penitent and 
believing adult is regenerate till he is baptized, and 
that when baptized he is regenerate. In the case 
of the infant there can, of course, be no effectual 
working of the Spirit, no moral change supposed or 
produced ; but the gift of the Spirit is presumed, 
according to the Calvinistic view, that the child is 
one of the elect. To one who believes in universal 
redemption, that the gift of the Spirit is, through 
the sacrifice of Christ, imparted to every one,* to 
work afterwards effectually or not, acccording to 
the Spirit being not resisted, while at baptism, 
through the mercy of his Saviour, the blessed child 
receives all that can be imparted to him, he is made 

* Page 9 of Dr. P.'s pamphlet. 



BAPTIZIN'G OF IN"FANTS DEFEITDED. 39 

*' a member of Christ, a cliild of God, and an inher- 
itor of the kingdom of Heaven," most certainly to 
be his, through Christ's salvation, if these blessings 
are never forfeited; and therefore it is that the Church 
holds that the baptized infant is truly regenerate 
then and there, for he has received all that can be 
bestowed upon him, according to the covenant, and 
he is blessed with a blessing like that bestowed on 
the happy children whom the Divine Redeemer took 
into His arms, put His hands upon, and blessed. 

Supposing, then, that every baptism of infants is 
duly performed ; that parents do present their chil- 
dren to be truly dedicated to the service of God 
by the initiatory rite of Christ's institution ; that it 
is their purpose to bring them up in the nurture 
and admonition of the Lord, and that the congre- 
gation in whose presence, as representatives of the 
Church Catholic, the child has been baptized, have 
truly prayed for its spiritual life, we doubt not "This 
child is regenerate, and admitted into the fellowship 
of Christ's religion," and we therefore pray that he 
may "lead the rest of his life according to this be- 
ginning ; " that he may crucify the old man, and 
utterly abolish the whole body of sin. And the 
sponsors, the father and mother, and any other who 
may be united with them for the greater security of 
the Christian education of the child, are exhorted, 
among other injunctions, to take care " that this 
child be virtuously brought up to lead a Godly and 
a Christian life, remembering always that baptism 
doth represent to us our profession, which is to fol- 
low the example of our Saviour Christ, and to be 
made like unto him; that, as he died and rose 



40 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

again for us, so should we who are baptized die from 
sin, and rise again unto righteousness, continually 
mortifying all our evil and corrupt afifections, and daily 
proceeding in all virtue and godliness of living." 

Now, in this, where do you find any authority for 
that most reckless and unfounded assertion, or, in- 
deed, where do you find it in any other part of the 
book of Common Prayer ? in any article of religion? 
in any creed ? in any rubrick? Where do you find 
in any divine of the Episcopal Church any such 
doctrine, "That an innocent babe that has a few 
drops of water sprinkled upon it, accompanied by a 
few words from a minister, will go to heaven ; but 
that the same innocent babe, without the water and 
the words, will go to hell?*' I dare you to the proof 
of what you have stated, and if you cannot prove it, 
what shall be thought of this attempt of casting 
obloquy upon us? 

But the Baptists, as you call yourselves, are, in 
truth, the last persons who should be ready to re- 
proach others with damning innocent babes ? For 
of what you falsely accuse Episcopalians, you [i. e., 
those among the first recorded Anti-Paedo-Baptists] 
have been at the very heginning of your origin, in 
the 12th century, the determined asserters. Thus 
the Petrobrussians, who were the first Anti-Paedo- 
Baptists that we read of, held that no infants could 
be saved. For, as it was declared, that " He that 
believeth and is baptized shall be saved," and infants 
could not believe and ought not to be baptized, so 
they could not be saved. See Wall's Histo^ of In- 
fant Baptism, Vol. II., ch. 7, p. 198. Again, at the 
time of the Keformation, Calvin, in his Institutes, 



BAPTIZING OF Iiq-FAKTS DEFENDED. 41 

book iv., ch. xvi. 31, charges them with inferentially 
holding the same doctrine. And, lastly, a very large 
body of Anti-Psedo-Baptists, perhaps the largest, are 
Oalvinists, and hold the doctrine of election, accord- 
ing to which God, by his own will and pleasure, 
has chosen certain persons out of mankind to be 
certainly saved, while all others, not so chosen, must 
necessarily be eternally lost, and that, thus, there 
are these non-elect infants who, dying in infancy, 
will be lost; as well as elect infants who, dying in 
infancy, will be saved. 

Now, I am [not] undertaking at all to deny or ap- 
prove of this doctrine ; this would be foreign to the 
subject in hand. I only speak of a fact that such 
doctrine is held by the Calvinist Baptists, and that 
I can see little or no difference between the doctrine 
certainly held by many of the fathers, St. Austin, 
especially, of the damnation of non-baptized infants, 
and the damnation of non-elect infants. " Quisque 
rectus derideat ^thiopem albus." 

We come, next, to our Saviour's baptism by John 
the Baptist. The attempt to reconcile irreconcil- 
able ideas is generally attributed to the inhabitants 
of a certain island, but it would seem that such at- 
tempts are not confined to such inhabitants. Or, in 
other words, others besides Irishmen can make 
Irish bulls. There were but six months' difference 
in the ages of our Saviour and John the Baptist. 
John's baptism did not begin till he was thirty 
years old at least. How our Saviour then could 
have been baptized by him in infancy, I think 
would puzzle a mathematician of Wake Eorest 
College to determine. But, further, some learned 



42 BAPTIZIXG OF IXFAXTS DEFENDED. 

men have supposed that the proselyte baptism of 
the JewSj practised before the coming of John, was 
extended to the children of the native Jew. If so, 
our Saviour was baptized in infancy, but not accord- 
ing to John's baptism. Other learned men have, 
perhaps with better reason, concluded that the pro- 
selyte baptism was not extended to children of na- 
tive Jews ; then our Saviour was not baptized in 
infancy. 

That infants were baptized according to John's 
baptism, is to me highly probable. John's baptism 
was intermediate between the proselyte baptism and 
the Christian baptism ; it would then in all proba- 
bility follow a well-known practice already existing, 
namely, the baptizing of the young children of those 
who had been themselves baptized according to 
John's baptism. And if C. Taylor, the editor of 
Calmet's Dictionary, is correct, we have traditionary 
proof of the baptizing of infants by St. John and 
his disciples, in the practice of the Sabians, who 
are professed followers of John the Baptist, and 
who even at this day baptize infants at forty days 
old, using a formula importing, "I baptize thee 
with the Baptism with which John the Baptist 
baptized." (Taylors Ap. Bap., p. 88, 89.)* 

The next case you comment on is that of John 
iv. 1, in which we learn that " Jesus made and bap- 
tized more disciples than John," etc. You say, " no 
infants in this case." I answer that is more than 
you can possibly know. The disciples probably fol- 
lowed the proselyte baptism of the Jews ; and, con- 

* See Appendix A. 



BAPnZIXG OF rSTA>-TS DEFENDED. 43 

seqnently. wotil J probably baptize the young children 
"whose parents they baptized- 

Ton Dext adduce the preaching of SL Peter on 
the day of Pentecost, and the circumstances of that 
preaching, as opposed to Infant Baptism. Let us 
examine whether it is so, or whether on the con- 
trary it is not in its favor. There are two partic- 
ulars to be observed in this transaction ; what kind 
of persons were present, and the address of St. Peter 
to them. The persons present were Jews from al- 
most all parts of the then known world, who had 
come to Jerusalem to worship at one of the three 
great festivals, at which the males of the Jews were 
required to be present, according to the command in 
Dent, xvi 16, " Three times a year shall all thy males 
appear before the Lord thy Grod, in the place which 
he shall choose." In all probability, then, there 
were no children present : it is highly probable no 
women were present, as only males were required to 
appear at and celebrate the three great festivals, of 
which Pentecost was one. Dent. xvi. 16. There is 
nothing therefore against Infant Baptism, that no 
infants are spoken of as receiying baptism, for it 
does not appear that any women received it on that 
occasion. But in the address of St. Peter to the Jews 
there is a good deal to lead us fuUy to conclude that 
the baptizing of young children, including iniimts, 
was by our Saviour intended to be a necessary fea- 
ture of the Gospel institution of Baptism. You ob- 
serve, and justly, that the word "children" in this 
address of St. Peter, " means descendants,'** and 

*Acts ii. 39, TExroi^^ children. Acts iii. 25, vioi, chil- 
dren or eons. 



44 BAPTIZING OF IXFAXTS DFFEXDED. 

therefore, it does not necessarily include infants, and 
I agree with you that the word itself [alone, cannot] be 
brought in proof of Infant Baptism, But we must 
remember these words were addressed to Jews, and 
how would they understand the declaration that the 
promise was to them and their children, their de- 
scendants, their posterity? Would they suppose, 
contrary to what they knew of *'•' little ones ""enter- 
ing into covenant with Jehovah by circumcision, 
contrary to what they knew of the baptism of the 
infants of proselytes from the Gentiles, and as some 
learned men think of their own infants, that their 
young children were for the first time to be refused 
the blessings of covenant relation with God ? How 
is it that we never hear one word of dissatisfaction, 
murmur, or whisper of discontent, at such exclusion, 
although the converted Jews were so clamorous for 
the practice of circumcision for infants as well as 
adults ? I consider this entire absence of any remon- 
strance, the entire silence of the Jewish converts in 
regard to the exclusion of their infant children, an 
evidence that there was no such exclusion, but that 
the children, infants if any, of these converts were 
baptized. Confirmatory perhaps of this evidence is 
the fact that we do not read of any of the children 
of the early converts being baptized when grown up, 
in the latter part of the Acts of the Apostles, as 
they were probably baptized in infancy. 

The next case you adduce is from Acts viiL 5, in 
which you try to make it appear that the narrative 
is against the supposition of infants having been 
baptized on that occasion. First, you say, - not a 
word about baptism tiU the people believed, and 



BAPTIZIIfG OF IKFAI^TS DEFEITDED. 45 

then men and women were baptized." Certainly, 
how could there be any baptism till the gospel was 
proclaimed, and fathers and mothers believed before 
their children were baptized ? Psedo-Baptists now 
would pursue the same course among the heathen 
that Pasdo-Baptists then did among the Samar- 
itans. But you say none but adults, men and women, 
are mentioned ; and add, " How easily might the 
Holy Spirit have settled this question of Infant 
Baptism forever, by giving this account thus : ^Then 
they were baptized, men, women, and their infant 
children.' " I am not so presumptuous as to dictate 
words to the Holy Spirit, or point out what He 
might easily have done. I have, however, yet to 
learn that the ever blessed and most true and Holy 
Spirit has undertaken to guard [by express words] 
against all the schisms, heresies, false opinions or 
practices, which have arisen in Christendom from 
the times of the Apostles to the present time. Had 
He been so pleased. He might have informed St. 
Luke that, in the 12th century, there would arise 
an entirely new sect, never heard of before by Cath- 
olic, heretic, or schismatic, denying [to infants] the 
sacrament of holy baptism, our title-deed to spiritual 
blessings, and thus shutting them out from the gra- 
cious covenant of the gospel. Had the Holy Spirit 
been so pleased, St. Luke, no doubt, would have been 
more cautious. But, in truth, the expression, men 
and women, is_ by no means necessarily confined to 
adult persons, as may be seen from the lexicons 
(see Liddell and Scott, under "gune and aner"), 
and in Judges ix. 49, the expression must include 
those of all ages ; for it cannot be supposed that 



46 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

the women who were destroyed would, with reckless 
hard-hearteduess, have left their infant children to 
the savage cruelty of that remorseless murderer, 
Abimelech. 

Your case of Cornelius is adduced to very little 
purpose against Infant Baptism. St. Peter, being a 
Psedo-Baptist, acted as any other Pagdo-Baptist would 
have done in like circumstances. 

What advantage can you derive from the baptizing 
of those who had been previously baptized according 
to John's baptism ? I cannot see. Either John's 
baptism was, as many Antipsedo-Baptists erroneously 
suppose, the same with Christian baptism ; and, 
then, here was a Christian baptism as you represent 
it ; and then this baptism would be contrary to the 
Infallibility of your authority, Carson. But, I pray 
you, tell us where you learned these disciples bap- 
tized by St. Paul had no faith ? Are you sure you 
ai-e not trying to re- write Scripture instead of in- 
terpreting it ? St. John's baptism was different 
from Christian baptism ; then, of course, they were 
to receive Christian baptism to be made members of 
the Christian Church, whether they had believed 
previously or not, according to John's baptism.* 

In the fifteenth chapter of the Acts, I find in the 
conduct of the believing Jews a strong confirmation 
of the practice of Infant Baptizing in the days of 
the Apostles. They insist upon the practice by the 

* [Jolin's baptism was for a reformation of life, a prepara- 
tion for receiving tlie Messiah, and for the receiving the re- 
mission of sins ; that is, it seems, to come through the Mes- 
siah. But Christ's baptism was into a faith, the faith in God 
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.] 



BAPTIZIlsrG OF INFAN'TS DErEiq"DED. 4.7 

Christians of circumcision after the manner of 
Moses. This must necessarily include the circum- 
cision of the children of these Gentiles. And v^e 
find in the twenty-first chapter of Acts, that it was 
made a serious charge against St. Paul by the be- 
lieving Jews that he discouraged the circumcision 
of even Jewish children. Except, perhaps, in the 
mind of a Quaker, I suppose no one can doubt of 
the Christians at Antioch, the adult Christians at 
any rate, having been baptized. Were the young 
children, the infants, baptized as well as the parents ? 
In what light must the believing Jews have regarded 
the gospel ? Assuredly either as a development of 
the old dispensation, the Mosaic, or as altogether a 
new dispensation. In either case, why should they 
have insisted on the circumcision of these Gentile 
children, if not for the purpose of introducing them 
into the old dispensation, developed and enlarged, 
or into what otherwise they must have considered a 
new dispensation. Now, if young children — infants 
— were entered into a new or a developed and en- 
larged dispensation by one ritual or sacramental 
observance, circumcision, why were they not ex- 
tremely likely to be by another ? But this is put 
beyond doubt by our remembering that when the 
Jews received proselytes from the heathen, the fe- 
male children of those proselytes were baptized, and 
the males circumcised and baptized. And would it 
not be astonishing if this notorious practice, as I 
trust I have, in the beginning of this answer, 
shown it to be, should be altogether abandoned, and 
not a syllable, not even an insinuation of its aban- 
donment be uttered, not one hint of disapproval 



48 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

of the exclusion of their young children, their in- 
fants, from the covenant of mercy and grace in the 
new dispensation ? 

I proceed next to consider the probability of In- 
fant Baptism from the household baptisms recorded 
in the ISTew Testament. I say probability, for I do 
not pretend that these household baptisms furnish 
a certain proof, unless it could be proved'as Neander 
supposes. The probability is, however, of a much 
higher character than is generally supposed. To 
show the force of this probability I will take your 
own statement. I shall place but little of my con- 
fidence in the reports, of which you have written, of 
the number of household baptisms in Pennsylvania, 
and Massachusetts ; but I have two remarks to 
make on this subject : that the proportion of the 
households without children, compared with those 
having children, must be much greater in the 
Northern States and now in the Southern States 
since the war, than in the Southern States before 
the war, or in the Eoman Empire, as in the former 
case slaves formed no part of the household, in 
the latter they did, commonly, with young children. 
Besides, I have heard, on good authority, that some, 
if not many. Baptist ministers often baptize chil- 
dren so young as to make it very doubtful whether 
they could be considered responsible for the spiritual 
engagements into which they had entered. But, 
after all, how few in number are these baptized 
childless households compared with the great num- 
bers claimed by the Baptists as members of their 
communion. 

You assert that in Ealeigh you could "baptize 



BAPTIZIJTG OF II^FAiq^TS DEFENDED. 49 

fifty families, not one of whom" — I suppose you 
mean not any one member of whicli families — 
'' should be too young to exercise faith in Christ,'' 
that is, not too young according to yoi0' representa- 
tion of Tertullian, of from six to ten years old, 
" who just know how to ask for salvation," p. 62. 
I am very willing to grant your assertion. I sup- 
pose there may be fifty families. I will go further 
than you, — according to your expression, "I will be 
generous," — and suppose these fifty families undoubt- 
edly all adults. I have been thirty-two years in 
this place, and have never heard of a household 
baptism in all that time — that is, a baptism in which 
all the members of the household were baptized at 
the same time. I do not mean to say absolutely 
that such a baptism never occurred, but only that I 
never heard of such a case ; nor do I think you 
have, or you would have been sure to have brought 
it forward. 

Farther, Raleigh is supposed to contain at this 
time 8,000 people. This number, according to the 
usual computation of five to a family, would give 
1,600 families. But, as you say, I will be generous, 
and suppose only 800, with ten to a family, or still 
more generous, only 500 families. Subtract your 
fifty from these 500, and there remain 450 families 
with children too young to be baptized on their own 
responsibility. Put the names of these 500 families 
together, mix them well, draw out a name, and the 
probability is as nine to one you will draw the name 
of a family with these very young children. Or, sup- 
pose an earnest minister of the G-ospel, preaching 
at the market-house, to a promiscuous assembly of 



50 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

unconverted persons — heads of families — and one of 
them, like Lydia, should have her heart opened by 
the Lord, would that person be more likely to 
belong to a family Avhere there were or were not 
very young children? The probability would be 
nine to one, according to your own estimate, that 
the person would belong to a family having children, 
not a childless family. Suppose, again, another 
head of a family should be brought to the faith of 
the Gospel, every one must clearly see that the im- 
probability of this second person being head of a 
childless family is increased at least double ; then, 
if you add a third and a fourth, the improbability 
of which I speak has become exceedingly great, almost 
beyond calculating, and yet you will pretend to say 
that not one of the four families who were respect- 
ively the first fruits of the Gospel, in the places 
where that Gospel was preached, had any merely 
young children in it. 

But I have not concluded this argument from 
probability in favor of Infant Baptism. I find in 
" Starkey on Evidence," a work of the highest legal 
authority, none higher I believe, the following 
words on the force of independent probabilities 
taken together : " The probability derived from the 
concurrence of a number of independent probabilities, 
increases not in a merely cumulative, but in a com- 
pound and multiplied proportion. This is a conse- 
quence derived from pure abstract arithmetical prin- 
ciples, for although no definite arithmetical value 
can be assigned to each independent probability, 
yet the principle of increase must obtain wherever 
independent probabilities in favor of an event 



BAPTIZIi^G OF IKFAJTTS DEFENDED. 51 

occur^ although they cannot be precisely measured 
by space, or numbers, and even although every dis- 
tinct probability, which is of a conclusive tendency, 
exceed every merely definite numerical/' Starkey's 
Evidence, Vol. I., p. 496, pt. 3, § 73. ISTow, it is this 
exceedingly high degree of multiplied probability 
we contend for in favor of Infant Baptism. For, 
First, Is it at all likely our Saviour intended to 
exclude from the blessed privileges of His church on 
earth those whom He personally blessed with spirit- 
ual blessings — for what else could they have been? — 
and declared of such was th ekingdom of heaven ? 
Secondly. What likelihood was there that they who 
had been, under the more restricted covenant of 
Moses, made partakers of the seal of the righteousness 
of faith, should, under the more enlarged and gracious 
covenant of the Gospel, without announcement, 
without warning, be deprived of such exalted priv- 
ileges as were conferred by the holy sacrament of 
baptism, and yet not one word of remonstrance, not 
one syllable of complaint be uttered, at any time, 
or in any circumstances, by those who, in every other 
respect, were so tenacious of every privilege they 
possessed, as the chosen people of God ! " Oredat 
Judseus Apella ! " Thirdly. I trust I have clearly 
shown the utter improbability that of the four, if 
no more, namely, the families of Lydia, the jailer, 
Crispus, and Stephanus, there should not be one 
family with infant, or at any rate, very young chil- 
dren, especially when the probabilities to the con- 
trary were at the very least possible estimate nine 
to one ; and lastly, remembering that in the disputes 
at Antioch, the believing Jews urged upon the Gen- 



52 BAPTIZIl^G OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

tiles the practice of circumcision according to the 
law of Moses, which of course included the young 
children ; now as the adults of the believing Gen- 
tiles must have been baptized, we have every reason 
to believe the children were baptized, as I have 
shown before. 

Supposing, then, that each of the four probabili- 
ties were of little weight in itself, yet as Starkey has 
shown, the probability resulting from the four taken 
together would be very great; but when on the con- 
trary each one of the four, as I contend and trust I 
have proved, is in itself of very great force — ^proba- 
bility, resulting from the combination of the four, 
is of overwhelming force, and approaches, if it does 
not attain to, a direct proof, besides giving great 
strength to the implied proofs of 1 Cor. vii. 14. 

I proceed to consider those corroborating proba- 
bilities of Infant Baptism, which you attempt to 
set aside. First : Of young children having been 
brought to Christ, Mark x. 13, Matt. xix. 13, Luke 
xviii. 15 ; of His having rebuked His disciples for 
attempting to keep them from Him ; of His having 
taken them in His arms, put His hands upon them 
and blessed them. You say, " Is it possible to believe 
that if baptism would have brought these little 
ones into the covenant of grace, or into the Church 
of Christ, or conferred upon them any good what- 
ever, He would have concealed this fact from their 
parents or from His disciples?" And again, you 
quote from Bishop Taylor's Liberty of Prophesy, 
what, if you knew it, you ought to have stated, and 
not have left the impression of the contrary on the 
minds of your readers, that the Bishop does not 



BAPTIZIN^G OF Iiq^FANTS DEFENDED. 53 

here adduce his own argument or opinion, but that 
of the Anti-Piedo-Baptist, that Christ's blessing 
these little cliildren and not baptizing them, is a 
proof that infants are not to be baptized. This 
argument you have answered yourself effectually, p. 
25, by telling us, according to John v. 2, "that 
Christ never baptized anybody." Why should He 
then have baptized these children? As to your 
other reasonings, they appear to me strange enough 
for a divine of your reputation. How could our 
Saviour have introduced these little ones into the 
Church of Christ, which did not exist, as He did 
not institute the Christian church till after His res- 
urrection ? See the difference of His commission 
to His apostles before and after His resurrection. 
Matt. X. 5, and xxviii. 19. See also Matt. xv. 24. 
And as to His instructing the parents of these chil- 
dren, in the nature and benefits of baptism, I am 
not aware that He discoursed at all, unless we ex- 
cept John iii. 5, to any one on the subject at any 
time. 

These children, further, were not brought forward 
to be baptized ; and possibly, they might already 
have been baptized by John's baptism. 

Our Saviour taking these little ones in His arms 
and blessing them, is certainly not such a direct 
proof of the baptizing of infants, as if He had bap- 
tized them ; but it has this bearing on the subject, 1st, 
that infants are capable of spiritual blessings, for 
lue cannot supjiose for a moment that His act in 
blessing them was nugatory. It must have con- 
veyed some spiritual advantage to them, and they are 
as capable of receiving from Him, ascended into 



54 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

heaven, such spiritual advantage as they were capa- 
ble of receiving while He was on earth. The dispo- 
sition to bless cannot be less now than then; and 
when He declares of such is the kingdom of God, 
who will deny that they are proper subjects of that 
militant, probationary, and disciplinary part of the 
kingdom, which is the covenanted and constituted 
entrance into the triumphant, sinless state of glory 
in that kingdom hereafter ? 

I proceed to consider the truth of your boast of 
adhering with such fidelity to the Scriptures in your 
faith and practices, p. 108. I begin with our " dis- 
reputable " argument, as you term it. This dis- 
reputable argument that we have no [plainer] 
authority for the communing of women, or the 
observation of the first day of the week instead of 
the seventh, than we have for the baptizing of in- 
fants, seems to me to have annoyed you not a little^ 
and thus you use hard terms, which are much more 
easily employed than sound argument. To begin 
with the communing of women ; let me use your 
own words, only substituting the words. The com- 
muning of women for Infant Baptism : " If the 
" communion of women be of Divine institution, 
" there must be Divine authority for it ; the com- 
"mand which enjoins it must be clear and explicit, 
" for there is no room for inference or induction in 
" regard to a positive institution of God. The Bible 
"contains no positive command enjoining female 
*' communion." 

In page 3, you appear to extend the limit of your 
dictum ; you intimate, though you do not expressly 
state, that an example of Infant Baptism might 



BAPTIZII^^G OF IXFAKTS DEFENDED. 55 

obviate your objections, and you do endeavor to 
show such examples in the case of the communing 
of women. You [seem to] confess there is no pre- 
cept for it. Indeed, you are obliged to do so. Let 
us see what your examples amount to. I observe, 
in the first place, that at the original institution of 
the Lord's Supper women were certainly not present, 
so there was no example there of women commun- 
ing. Your first quotation, from Acts i. 14, does 
not even mention any communing at all, there- 
fore cannot possibly mention women commun- 
ing. Your next example is taken from Acts v. 14, 
but I prefer taking the cases in the order in which 
they occur in St. Luke. The next, then, is Acts ii. 
42, " They, the disciples, continued steadfast^ in 
the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in break- 
ing of Iread and prayers ; " — the Ir caking of dread 
being universally understood to mean the Lord's 
Supper. But among all these disciples there does 
not appear to have been one woman ; for, first, as 
we read in Ex. xxiii. 17, and Deut. xvi. 16, only 
males were required to attend the three festivals in 
the place in which they were appointed to be held ; 
and secondly, in the Apostle's address to those 
assembled before him to hear the Gospel, he ad- 
dresses them by a name (Andres) which is exclusive 
of females, and is applicable to male human beings 
only. (See the lexicons on aner.) I repeat, then, 
there is no proof whatever of any woman having 
become a disciple on the day of Pentecost. One 
passage, much more to your purpose, you have not 
quoted — Acts xx. 7. From this I think it appears 
highly probable that women were present, and that 
3* 



56 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

they did receive the Lord's Sapper ; but, after all, 
this is inferential, for it cannot be certainly shown 
that women were present, and that they did receive. 

As regards the change from the Sabbath to the 
Lord's day, as a day of religious observance, your 
difficulties are much greater, and some of your 
attempted proofs are certainly very extraordinary. 

You acknowledge there is no express command 
for the change, but that it is proved by the example 
of Christ and His Apostles. I deny that that 
change is proved by any such examples. 

First, of our Saviour. That he rose from the 
dead on the first day of the week, and, as you say, 
by a most egregious mistake for a biblical scholar 
and learned divine, he ascended on the first. How 
our Saviour's rising from the dead on the first day 
of the week proves that he substituted the first day 
for the seventh as the Sabbath, I cannot possibly 
nnderstand ; or how his having ascended on Thurs- 
day, not Sunday, should, by any possible logical 
connection, shoAv that the Sabbath — Saturday — was 
done away, and the Lord's day, Sunday, substituted 
in its place. It would have been Thursday in this 
case, and not Sunday. You say our Saviour "ap- 
peared to his disciples repeatedly on the first day." 
How many times do you mean by repeatedly — two, 
four, six, or ten, or twenty times ? Instruct us ! 
Point out the places! Except that our Saviour 
revealed himself on the very day of his resurrection 
to various parties of his disciples, as it was natural 
to suppose He would, I know but of one other 
probable instance of his specially meeting with 
them, and that only on the supposition that eight 



BAPTIZING OF IXPAXTS DEFENDED. 57 

days after, according to tlie Eastern mode of com- 
putation, may mean the first day of the week (John 
XX. 26). I know, 1 say, but of this one instance. I 
suppose you will hardly now insist that our Ke- 
deeraer ascended on the first day of the week. 

As for the example of the Apostles, where is your 
proof? ''John,'*' you say, " always speaks of the first as 
the Lord's day.*' Xhe seventh is called the Sabbath. 
By what logic does calling the former the Lord's 
day prove that it was sutstitided for the latter ? 
HoTV does the coming together to break bread prove 
that the disciples had abandoned the observation of 
the Sabbath ? You take good care indeed to give 
ns very strong assertions, but to bring no single 
example of the Apostles having abandoned the obser- 
vation of the Sabbath ; the proof is entirely the 
other way. We know very well what a clamor the 
Scribes and Pharisees raised against our Saviour, 
for even healing on the Sabbath day. We know 
what a clamor was raised against St. Paul, because 
he was resolved to set aside circumcision in the 
Gentile churches ; but not one syllable, not a hint 
of reprehension do we hear of against him for his 
neglect even, to say nothing of his change, and 
consequently, of his abandonment of the Sabbath 
for the first day of the week. On the contrary, his 
converted Jewish brethren state expressly, •• Thou 
thyself walkest orderly and keepest the law," Acts 
xxi. 24. If this was the case with St Paul, we 
may be sure it was so with the other apostles, for he 
certainly was not the most strenuous among them 
for the observation of the Mosaic institutions. 
Further, we find the Apostle making use of the Sab- 



58 BAPTIZENG OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

bath, much more than of the first day of the week, 
to preach the Gospel to both Jews and Gentiles. 
(Acts xiii. 14, 42 ; xvi. 13 ; xviii. 4.) And now I 
use your words, substituting the words, change of tlie 
Sabbath for Infant Baptism. " If the change of 
Sabbath to the first day of the week be a Divine 
institution, there must be Divine authority ; the 
command which enjoins it must be clear and explicit, 
for there is no room for inference or induction in 
regard to a positive institution of God." Again, you 
are as unfortunate in your appeal to history as to 
the Scriptures. You say, "the testimony of all 
eccle^astical historians is uniform that the Apostles 
and early Christians kept the first, instead of the 
seventh day of the week." Pray tell us who these 
ecclesiastical historians are ? But, in fact, your asser- 
tion is so far from being true, that almost the direct 
contrary is the case, and that ecclesiastical histo- 
rians are uniform in declaring that both days were 
kept ; with some distinction it is true, the Lord's 
day being uniformly kept as a festival throughout 
the Christian church, while the Sabbath or seventh 
d§iy was kept as a festival in the Eastern, but with 
the exception of Milan, as a fast in the Western 
churches. Bingham's Antiquities, book 13, ch. 9, and 
book 20, ch. 3. I quote a part of the table of con- 
tents of the 20th book, ch. 3, and to save trouble 
and space, refer to the body of the work for a fitter 
description of the subject. " The Saturday or Sab- 
" bath, always observed in the Eastern church as a 
*' festival, observed with the same religious solem- 
"nities as the Lord's day. But in some other re- 
'* spects the preference was given to the Lord's day." 



BAPTIZIN-a OF IKFAKTS DEFEITDED. 59 

In the " Apostolical Constitutions, Cotelerius edi- 
tion," there will be found rules for the observation 
of the seventh day, or Saturday. Now, I wish it 
to be clearly understood, that I am very far from 
supposing that there is not sufficient evidence, from 
Scripture and antiquity, taken together, to show that 
the first day of the week was the Christian's real day 
of rest and religious observance ; but wish to point out 
how very far you have been from proving this, and 
that, from your manner of showing, instead of the 
proof t)f the change from the seventh to the first 
day of the week, for religious observances, having 
the advantage over the proof for Infant Baptism, 
from either Scripture or antiquity, it is precisely 
the reverse. The true state of the case, as regards 
the observation of the first day of the week, is this : 
The churches of converted Jewfj, especially in 
Judea, kept both days. The Gentile churches, as 
they had never kept the seventh day, (at any rate 
were not keeping it at the time of our Saviour's 
advent), kept only the first day ; gradually the keep- 
ing of both days pervaded the church, till at 
last, by degrees, the keeping of the seventh day fell 
into disuse, and finally, the first day of the week 
was the sole day of weekly religious observances. 

Again, will you, who profess such firm adherence 
to Scripture, tell me from what command or exam- 
ple you derive your notion of the authority of your 
ministry, as given in the Baptist Directory, p. 66, 
§ iv., " an internal call " from God, giving that 
authority ? Show me a single example from either 
the Old or New Testament, of any such internal call 
of authority, in the Old Testament to be a prophet 



60 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

or priest, in the New to be a minister of the Gos- 
pel. There is no such instance in the whole Word 
of God. As to the example of Aaron, which your 
Directory cites in illustration, or proof of this 
direct internal call, it is, in all respects, totally con- 
trary to that for which your Directory cites it. 
"No one," says the Directory, "can be correctly 
called but he that w^as called of God, as was Aaron.'' 
Aaron had certainly no internal call, no direct call, 
for Moses was directed to set him apart for his 
office ; and thirdly, a miracle was wrought to'estab- 
lish his authority. See Ex. xxviii. and xxix., and Num. 
xvi. and xyii. Now, as you renounce all authority for 
the ministry except from this internal call, and there 
is no such direct internal call or authority in the 
whole Word of God, and you claim to be entirely 
governed by the Word of God, then you do, in fact, 
renounce all authority for your ministers. For, as 
you disclaim any ministerial authority but that 
which is derived from an internal call, and this 
notion of an internal call is entirely unscriptural, 
then the supposed authority of your ministry is 
entirely unscriptural, or, in other words, is no min- 
istry at all. Observe, I do not say that absolutely 
you are no ministers. That is a question I do not 
here choose to enter on ; but that, taking your 
account of the matter, and comparing it with Scrip- 
ture, you have no ministry. 

Further, will you tell me your scriptural author- 
ity, by command or example, for your manner of 
receiving a member of one congregation into some 
other congregation ? The member receives his letter 
dismissory from the one congregation, addressed to 



BAPTIZIK-G OF IXFA>s"TS DEFEIfDED. 61 

the other ; he is then YOtecl for by the members of 
the other congregation, and, according to the Bap- 
tist Manual, if five of the members vote against 
him, he cannot be admitted, thus depriving a man, 
who may be a worthy follower of the Lord, of his 
high privilege of commemorating the atoning sacri- 
fice of the Son of God. Pray, where is your scrip- 
tural warrant for this proceediug ? Where in the 
[N'ew Testament a warrant for using leavened instead 
of unleavened bread in the encharist ? Where do 
you find a warrant for instrumental music, at one 
time the abhorrence of all the dissenters from the 
Church of England ? How is it that you, who 
pretend to adhere so tenaciously to Scripture, prac- 
tice no love-feasts, no kiss of charity, do not wash 
the disciples' feet ? 

Next, of the corroborative probability which cir- 
cumcision furnishes to the practice of Infant Bap- 
tism. You say, ^* that its advocates thereby acknowl- 
edge that the Xew Testament knows nothing of it." 
I must frankly say that in this and the succeeding 
paragraph you are pressed with the force of the 
argument from circumcision, and are endeavoring 
to raise a false issue ; for what defender of Infant 
Baptism would ever acknowledge that, to prove 
Infant Baptism, he must leave the jS'ew Testament 
and go back to the Old ! The argument from cir- 
cumcision is plainly this. Besides other proofs of 
the evidence of Infant Baptism, both before and 
after the times of the ^ew Testament, and particu- 
larly of Christian Infant Baptism in the times of 
the earhest Christians, showing its divine institution 
and apostolic practice, we adduce passages from the 



62 



BAPTIZING OP INPANTS DEFENDED. 



Kew restament, which clearly and directly imply 
this institution and practice. In addition to these 
evidences, we bring forward arguments of proba- 
bihty to confirm, if it were necessary, still further 
these direct proofs. Among these probabilities the 
rite of circumcision, required for infants as well as 
for adults, is one. We do not mean, by adducing 
circumcision as a probable argument for Infant 
I^aptism, that because infants were circumcised un- 
der the old dispensation, they must therefore be 
baptized under the new. I omit for the present the 
use of the word Church; but our argument runs 
thus: The rite of circumcision for infants removes 
all objections against the rite of baptism for infants • 
of their incapacity for understanding the nature of 
the sacrament, and of the obligations incurred bv its 
practice; for it is plain, from Deut. xii. 12, that chil- 
dren can enter into covenant with God ; that they are 
required to enter or be so entered ; that the means 
of so entering is by circumcision, and that the man- 
child who is not circumcised is said to have broken 
G-od's covenant, and that his covenant required a 
belief and worship of the Lord, that is, Jehovah, as 
their God, and the observation of His commands 
both moral and ceremonial. The same obligations 
we contend, are imposed on the baptized infant' 
He IS to receive the Lord as his God, and to be 
bound by all the Christian obligations of faith and 
holiness. Further, from fact as well as from what 
fet. Paul instructs us, we know that in regard to 
others, the Gospel dispensation, instead of bein<r 
more ^restricted, was more expanded than the Jew"! 
ish. Thus the Apostle teaches us, " There is neither 



BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 63 

Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, there is neither male 
nor female, for je are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal. 
iii. 28.) We may observe that there is here no men- 
tion made of any removal of the distinction between 
old and young, adult or infant. Why? Because 
no such distinction existed, although it did in all 
the other respects mentioned. It was, therefore, 
unnecessary for the Apostle to say there is neither 
adult nor infant, because no such distinction existed. 
Thirdly. The Apostle himself employs the analogy be- 
tween circumcision and baptism by calling the latter 
the circumcision made without hands. You em- 
ploy, indeed, th-e first part of the quotation, but 
you take care to leave out the second. The whole 
runs thus : " In whom also ye are circumcised with 
the circumcision made without hands, in putting 
off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circum- 
cision of Christ. Buried with him in baptism, 
wherein also ye are risen with him." Again, there 
are expressions used by the Apostle St. Paul regard- 
ing circumcision, which are equally applicable to 
baptism : " For he is not a Jew who is one out- 
wardly ; neither is that circumcision which is out- 
ward, in the flesii ; but he is a Jew who is one 
inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in 
the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not 
of men, but of God." (Rom. ii. 28, 29.) Substitute 
the word baptism for circumcision, and Christian 
for Jew, and how very suitable the words used by 
the Apostle to the Christian character. 

How do you attempt to get rid of this evidence 
of probability from circumcision ? You tell us that 
Paedo-Baptists say the " Christian Church is identical 



64: - BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

with the Jewish Church. Under the Gospel, infants 
are entitled to be baptized, since baptism is now 
the seal of the covenant of grace, and has taken 
the place of circumcision." As you have cited no 
authors for these assertions, as I do not rest the 
argument from circumcision on any such ground 
of identity, nor do the best Paedo-Baptist authors 
with whom I am acquainted, I might pass over all 
that you have said on this point without detriment 
to the cause of Infant Baptism, but I must confess 
I cannot pretend to be as generous as you profess. 
I wish to expose the fallacies and contradictions of 
Scripture into which you have fallen. 

There are two senses in which the word identity 
or sameness may be understood. The having one 
or more qualities or properties which mark it as an 
individual, although it may have other properties 
or qualities, which change in the same individual 
at different times and in different circumstances. 

In this sense, the egg of the condor, lying torpid 
in the nest, is the same with the bird soaring with 
untiring wing to the heights of the Andes. In 
this sense, the Newton of the womb is the Newton 
of the " Principia." This first kind of identity you 
yourself, in fact, acknowledge, in saying that " the 
two systems are alike in some respects." If you 
had said essential respects, it would have been so 
much better. You say **'both were of divine origin, 
both were the recipients of the Scriptures, and both 
were designed to promote the glory of God and the 
good of man." And St. Paul seems to be of the 
same mind as regards this sort of identity, when, 
allegorically, he tells the Gentiles of the Church at 



BAPTIZING OF IIs'FAN^TS DEFEN'DED. 65 

Eome, that the natural branches of the oliye-tree 
were broken ofif, " and thou being a wild olive-tree 
wert grafted in " among them, " and with them made 
partaker of the root and fatness of the olive," etc. 
In these words, is it not plain that the Apostle con- 
sidered the Jewish system, as you call it — Church, 
as I call it, and shall soon prove it to be — as the 
root, the foundation of the Christian expansion and 
development. As to that other sort of identity of 
perfect sameness in all respects whatever, I know 
not one who makes use of it, for it is a contradic- 
tion in its very terms, and I must call upon you to 
name what author you can possibly find and quote 
who has ever urged this perfect sameness as a proof 
of the necessity of Infant Baptism from Infant Cir- 
cumcision. At any rate, should you be able to find 
any such, it is no business of mine, as I make no 
such assertion, I use no such argument. What I 
do say is tliis, that Infant Circumcision shows that 
infants can enter, or be entered into covenant with 
God, and thus any objection which may arise from 
their not understanding the benefits or obligations 
of either circumcision or baptism [is obviated] ; and 
that, as they are received by the one rite into the 
Jewish dispensation, so there is an antecedent prob- 
ability * they would be by the other rite into the 
Christian dispensation. I mighb, therefore, leave 
all that you have said on this head of identity and 
circumcision, but I cannot forbear pointing out the 
unscriptural mistakes into which you have fallen. 

[* May not circumcision show that, under God, children 
have rights ?] 



66 



BAPTIZr>^G OF IXFANTS DEFENDED. 



You say, page 43, "In no proper Gospel sense," you 
have not condescended to inform us, and therefore 
I shall not undertake to conjecture [what is the 
Gospel sense of Church] in your opinion; but that 
the word Church may be applied to the whole 
nation of the Jews, we may learn, if our transla- 
tors are correct, from St. Stephen (Acts, vii 38) 
who tells us, - This is he that was in the church in 
the wilderness." You see, you and St. Stephen do 
not agree yery well on this point. Further, the 
greater part of the ]\'ew Testament, it is well known 
was written in Greek. St. Matthew, and the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, are supposed, by many critics, to 
haye been originally written in Hebrew, but yery 
soon translated into Greek, so that since the :N-ew 
Testament is a Greek book, but not altogether clas- 
sic Greek, but of the Greek [of the] translation of 
the Old Testament called the Septuagint. This trans- 
lation was most highly valued by those called the 
Jews of the dispersion, who lived in countries where 
Greek was the chief or best language of the country, 
as in Egypt, and what we now call Asia Minor.' 
This translation was also very much valued by the 
early Christian Church, as may be learned from St^ 
Augustine's «De civitate Dei.'' In was also very 
copiously employed by the writers of the Kew 
Testament, in their quotations from the Old Testa- 
ment, more so even than the original Hebrew, show- 
ing the value they attached to it. (See Michaelis' 
Introduction, Vol. L, ch. v. 83, and Home's Intro- 
duction, Part I., ch. 5, § 82, and Part L, ch. and § 
2.) Now, in our version of the Old Testament, 
where the word congregation occurs, the word cor- 



BAPTIZIXG OF IXFAXTS DEFEXDED. 67 

responding to it in the Septuagint, the Greek ver- 
sion, is repeatedly, not nuiversally, hut repeatedly, 
(in far the greater number of instances, I believe,) 
the Tery same word (ecclesia) which is translated 
Church in the Xew : and therefore no fair, no just 
reason can possibly be urged "why it may not be 
translated *•' Church " in the Old Testament as 
well as in the Xew. But ex abundanti, for proof 
more than enough, when St. Paul instructs the 
Gentiles of the Church in Eome that the natural 
branches were broken off, and the Gentiles grafted 
in, was it into a nationality or a church they were 
grafted ? But, perhaps, you differ from St. Paul 
as you did from St. Stephen. L^tly, pray tell me, 
according to the proper Gospel sense, can the word 
Church be applied to the churches of Pergamos, 
Thyatira, and Laodicea ? 

Whether, after the revolt of the ten tribes, after 
their substituting a false priesthood for the true- 
still worse, after the infamous attempt to worship 
Jehovah " under the simihtude of an ox that eateth 
grass," Ps. cvi. 20, by setting up calves in Dan and 
Bethel ; worst of all, by their atrocious polytheism 
in the worship of Baal, Moloch, and Ashtoreth, 
after such heresy and schism, the ten tribes could 
be considered the Church of God, is another 
matter. 

But I think it evident you confound two things 
together which are very distinct, the visible Church, 
as described by our Saviour in the parable of the 
net cast into the sea (Matt. xiii. 47), and the field 
sown with good seed, in which the enemy has sown 
tares (Matt. xiii. 24), and the parable of the ten 



68 BAPTIZrXG OF IXFAKTS DEFENDED. 

virgins (:\Iatt. xxv.), and what is called bv many the 
invisible Church, or, by 8t. Paul, " the Church of the 
first born, which are written in heaven." (Heb. xii 
23.) I hope, in your next attack on Infant Baptism* 
you will do us the favor to give the proper Gospel 
sense of a Church, and inform us whether the Bap- 
tist denomination is such a Church. 

You say, page 45, "I deny that circumcision ever 
was a seal of the covenant of grace." Then pray 
tell me, What does the Apostle St. Paul mean when 
he says that Abraham received the sign of circum- 
cision a seal of the righteousness of the faith which 
he hadj being yet uncircumcised ? " (Rom. iv. 11), and, 
indeed, the whole of that chapter. But you and the 
Apostle St. Paul do not always agree. 

To inform us of the distinction between the two 
covenants, you have chosen a singular mode of prov- 
ing it from the two passages in Genesis ; the first of 
these passages has express mention of making of 
Abraham a great nation, and this you sav was the 
covenant of grace; and the second passage, as you 
have quoted it, has nothing of nationality in it. It 
is not easy to see why you have quoted Dr. Hodge, 
for there is not a word of circumcision in the pas- 
sage quoted, and the learned Doctor may have shown 
circumcision to have been the seal of both the cove- 
nants mentioned. I think that he has so repre- 
sented it is very probable. At any rate, you have 
not rendered it very easy to determine what his 
opinion on this point may be, except that it is most 
hkely to be in accordance with that of other learned 
men, for you have followed your usual practice, and 
have not even given us the work of the learned Doc- 



BAPTIZING OE INFANTS DEFENDED. G9 

tor from wliicli your quotation is taken, much less 
the volume or page. 

The truth is, circumcision, in the Jewish economy, 
was a seal for three different things, 1st, A national 
mark of distinction. 2dly, According to the Apos- 
tle St. Paul, a seal of the righteousness of the faith 
which Abraham had, being yet uncircumcised; and 
thirdly, as our Saviour has instructed us (John vii. 
22), Moses gave circumcision unto the Israelites to 
be evidently a sign and seal of their obligation to 
obey that law they had received through the instru- 
mentality of Moses. 

You object greatly against the notion that bap- 
tism succeeded, or was in the place of circumcision; 
and you offer in behalf of your objection two argu- 
ments; first, '^If baptism came in the place of cir- 
cumcision, it is surely so stated in the Scriptures. 
But it is not so stated anywhere in the Bible, either 
directly or indirectly. There is no intimation even 
that they are in any way connected." (Pp. 48 and 
49.) And again you say, " It was a type, not of bap- 
tism but of conversion." Then you quote Col. ii. 
11. Your second argument is, that '^ if baptism took 
the place of circumcision, it was very singular that 
the early Christians did not know it," which ''is evi- 
dent from the fact that they circumcised their chil- 
dren for many years after they became Christians, and 
it is most extraordinary that Paul did not know that 
baptism came in the place of circumcision, for if he 
had been aware of this fact, he would never have 
circumcised Timothy after he had been baptized and 
was a grown man." (Pp. 49 and 50.) 

To these arguments I think the answer is most 



70 



BAPTIZING OF IXFAXTS DEFENDED. 



easy. You say, "circumcision is a type of conver 
sion," which appears to me rather contradictory to 
the notion you have so strenuously maintained that 
It IS only a seal of nationality ; but let that pass. If 
circumcision is a type of conversion, what is bap- 
tism in the following passages ? 1 Cor. vi. 11 : But ye 
are washed, ye are sanctified; Heb. x. 22, Havin- 
our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our 
bodies washed with pure water. 1 Peter iii. 21, 
'' The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also' 
now save us, not the putting away of the filth of 
the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience to- 
ward God." ^^ow, I do not care to call circumcision 
a type of baptism, I should rather say, that both be- 
ing figures of the inward sanctification, circum- 
cision, under the old dispensation, was a very fit rep- 
resentation of its substitute, baptism, under the new. 
But m quoting from Colossiaus, why did you not 
continue the quotation a little further that it might 
be seen how intimate the Apostle considers the con- 
nection between the two rites, so that he calls bap- 
tism the circumcision made without hands ? "In 
whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision 
made without hands, in putting off the body of the 
sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ : bu- 
ried with him in baptism," etc. (Col. ii. 11, 12). 
^ In your second objection to the notion'that bap- 
tism succeeded circumcision, because thev were prac- 
ticed simultaneously, you are mistaken, Vhollv mis- 
taken, in the fact. There was no such simultane- 
ous practice among the Gentiles. Our Saviour, in 
his commission to his apostles to baptize, had no- 
thing of it. When the Gentiles, in the person and 



BAPTIZIXG OF IXFAXT3 DEFENDED. 71 

family of Cornelius, were admitted into the Chris- 
tian church by baptism, we hear nothing of it; and 
there is nothing said of any circumcision being 
practiced at or after any baptism; no attempt is 
made to enforce it on any of these occasions, till we 
come to the transactions at Antioch. (Acts, xv.) Be- 
lieving Jews from Judea, coming to Antioch, en- 
deavored to enforce on the Gentile converts the 
practice of circumcision. When disputes arose 
with these persons, it was determined that "Paul 
and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should 
go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders 
about this question." It appears from this passage, 
that circumcision had not been practiced by the 
Gentile converts up to this period. The council at 
Jerusalem, held in consequence of this appeal, de- 
termined unanimously against the practice of cir- 
cumcision by tlie Gentile converts. In St. Paul's 
epistle to Galatians, it appears that converted Jews 
had persuaded the Galatians to introduce among 
them the practice of circumcision; and we know 
well with what severity St. Paul, in his epistle, cen- 
sures their conduct, and warns them of the injuri- 
ous consequences which must result from such 
practice. From ecclesiastical history we learn that 
the Church at Jerusalem did practice circumcision, 
as long as they had a bishop of the circumcision 
over tbem, that is, a Jew by descent; bat when they 
elected Mark, a bishop not of the circumcision, they 
discontinued the practice. (Mosheim De rebus, etc.). 
This difference of practice between the Church at 
Jerusalem, and every Gentile Church, without ex- 
ception, as well as the circumcising of Timothy, but 



72 BAPTIZING OF IXFAXT3 DEFENDED. 

not of Titus, is easily explained. Circumcision had 
a threefold purpose. (See Spencer de legibus Hebrae- 
orum.) First, it was a mark of nationality ; second- 
ly, it was to Abraham and his posterity a seal of 
the righteousness of faith ; here it was in the Gospel 
church superseded by baptism ; thirdly, according 
to our Saviour (John vii. 22), it was adopted, and, St. 
Paul instructs us, was, under the ^[osaic dispensa- 
tion, a bond of obligation to keep the whole law. 
(Gal. V. 3.) As a mark of nationality the Gentile 
could not receive it, for to him it would be no such 
mark at all ; but to the Jew it would be a mark of 
nationality, and therefore it was not incompatible 
with his profession of the Gospel to use the rite only 
on this account. Therefore the apostle circumcised 
Timothy as a Jew, that his services might be more 
acceptable to his own countrymen, and thus he re- 
fused to circumcise Titus, because to Titus, a Gentile, 
circumcision could be no mark of nationality, but 
must have been received for one of the two other 
purposes. For the second purpose it would be su- 
perfluous, and therefore improper, because baptism 
had superseded circumcision as a seal of the right- 
eousness of faith. It could have been received solely 
then as a bond of obligation to be subjected to the 
obedience of tlie whole laAv of Moses, and not to 
the graciousness and mercy of the Gospel. 

I proceed now to consider the proof which the early 
fathers of the church furnish, of the apostolic 
practice of the baptizing of infants, observing that, 
except in the few instances in which I had ready 
access to the originals, I am indebted to Drs. 



I 



EAPTIZIXG OF IXFAXTS DEFENDED. 73 

Wall and Hammond for the quotations from the 
fathers. 

Before I adduce these quotations, lioweyer, I think 
it necessary to make some preliminary remarks 
bearing on the subject, and preface them with the 
assertion of the Kev. Robert Hall, the very eminent 
Baptist minister, in his controversy with Mr. King- 
horne, on the subject of free communion, of which 
he was the strenuous advocate. Though, of course, 
believing that the baptizing of infants was an inno- 
vation, he asks, " What became of that portion of 
the ancient church which refused to adopt the bap- 
tism of infants ? Did they separate from their 
brethren in order to form distinct and exclusive 
societies ? Of this not the faintest trace or vestige 
is to be found in ecclesiastical history, and the sup- 
position is completely confuted by the concurrent 
testimony of ancient writers to the universal incor- 
poration of orthodox Christians into one grand 
community. We challenge our opponents to pro- 
duce the shadow of evidence in favor of the exist- 
ence, during that long period of time, of a single 
society of which adult baptism was the distinguish- 
ing characteristic." (Vol. L, p. 482, Hall's works.) 
The long tract of time of which he speaks is from 
Tertullian, one hundred years after the Apostle St. 
John, to Austin, and certainly, as he states in the 
preceding page, there was no previous distinction 
of Pgedo-Baptist and Anti-P«do-Baptist societies. 
Again, on the same page he adds : " After the com- 
mencement of the fourth century, down to the era 
of the Eeformation, the baptism of infants was 
firmly established and prevailed." I adduce these 
4 



74 BAPTIZIXG OF IXFAXTS DEFENDED. 

quotations to show how utterly unfounded are the 
attempts made by many Baptist writers to claim 
various sects of heretics and schismatics as having 
renounced the communion of the Catholic Church, 
on account of its practicing Infant Baptism. As, 
for instance, by the author of the Baptist Directory, 
attempting to claim, without a shadow of proof or 
probability, the Massalians (Messalians, as he erro- 
neously calls them), Euchites, the same sect with 
the Massalians, though he makes them different, 
Montanists of the first century, Novatians, Dona- 
tists, of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, and he 
asserts of these that they rejected Infant Baptism, 
as Mosheim, Allix, Eobinson, and other historians 
assert (p. 244 and 245). Of this there is not one 
word of truth, as may be seen by consulting these 
authors. He introduces also the Paulicians as de- 
nying Infant Baptism, which may be true enough, for 
they rejected, like the modern Quakers, all baptism. 
The long tract of time of which this candid and 
eminent divine (Dr. Hall) writes, is from the times 
of the Apostles to that of St. Augustine, Bishop of 
Hippo, after which there can be no question of the 
universal practice of baptizing infants, as will be 
shown in its place. Robert Hall, however, might 
have gone much further, and might have plainly 
stated that, except in the case of such heretics as 
rejected, like our modern Quakers, all baptism, there 
is not to be found for one thousand years after the 
Apostolic age, that i^ after the death of St. John, 
one single writer, Catholic or heretic, who in any 
one sentence, in any one line, has ever asserted, or 
even intimated, that the baptizing of infants was 



BAPTIZIISTG OF Iiq"FANTS DEFEl^DED. 75 

an innovation, was nnscriptural, was contrary to 
the institution of Christ. How certainly true this 
assertion is, that for a thousand years after St. John 
tlie apostle, there is not to be found a single line of 
condemnation from either Catholics or heretics, as 
stated above, your own pamphlet is sufficient proof; 
for it is to be supposed that you, or, at any rate, the 
writers of your communion, on whom you profess 
to rely for your statements as well as arguments, 
would do their best to search out some condemna- 
tion from antiquity of Infant Baptism. And what 
is the utmost that they are able to do ? They, or 
you, quote from Justin Martyr the following pas- 
sage : " We were born without our will, but in bap- 
tism we are to have choice and knowledge. This 
we learned from the Apostles." Supposing this 
passage quoted correctly, for, not having access to 
the works of Justin Martyr, I know nothing to the 
contrary, what does it amount to ? The far greater 
part of the world, in the days of Justin Martyr, 
were heathen, and, of course, if any embraced 
Christianity, it would be from their own choice ; and 
even of infants baptized, it would be their choice af- 
terwards whether they would continue or not in the 
Christian faith. And this is all you or your writers 
have been able to bring forward from any early father 
against the baptizing of infants in the Church of 
the second century, or the first after the Apostles. 

So damaging to the cause of the Anti-Paedo-Bap- 
tists is this total silence, this entire absence of all 
censure of the baptizing of infants as nnscriptural, 
as contrary to Christ's institution, that many of 
your controversial works, most contrary to the truth 



76 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

of all ecclesiastical history, have endeavored to bring 
forward several sects of scliisraatics and heretics, 
who [as they maintain] rejected Infant Baptism. 
In which attempt they have shown either their 
great ignorance of ecclesiastical history, or else their 
want of honesty. And I cannot understand how 
divines of such learning, piety, and truth as are to 
be found in the Baptist denomination, should not 
only not censure, should not only tolerate, but 
even encourage the dissemination of works of such 
untruthfulness. I allude to such works as the Bap- 
tist Directory, by Dr. Hiscox, a book, I suppose, of 
authority in your communion, and widely dissemi- 
nated, if the title-page states truly that twelve thou- 
sand have been published. This book brings for- 
ward the Euchites, the Messalians, the Montanists, 
Donatists, etc., etc., as rejecting Infant Baptism 
(page 244) ; so the popular novel of Theodosia says 
of the Sectaries in the days of Austin, I suppose he 
means the Donatists, "refused to baptize their chil- 
dren." (Yol. I., p. 388.) In like manner that vera- 
cious history called " Orchard's." * 

In all these assertions of examples, there is not 
one word of truth, as may be learned not only from 
what Eobert Hall has asserted, but still more fully 
from what St. Austin, whose authority in the 
Church, both at the time he lived and since is so 
well known, declares he never met with any Chris- 
tian, either Churchman or Sectary, nor with any 

* Tlie cliarge above is distinctly that the representation 
made of tlie character of tlie above-mentioned sects, and for 
wMcli Mosheim's name is used, is untrue, according to 
Mosheim. 



BAPTIZING OF IJ^FAKTS D;EFEN'DBD. 77 

writer who owned the Scriptures, who taught any 
other doctrine but that " infants are baptized for the 
pardon of sin." " Much less then had he known or 
heard of any that denied that they are to be bap- 
tized at all." (Wall's Inf. Bap., Vol. L, p. 304.) And 
the assertion made in some of your books, that 
some persons baptized in infancy were baptized 
when they became adults, because they considered 
their baptism when infants as invalid, [has no eyi- 
dence of its truth] as you well know [I suppose], 
and therefore, as I suppose, have honestly avoided 
such assertion. You have endeavored, but certainly 
very unsuccessfully, to make an argument against 
Infant Baptism, from the silence, as you insist, of 
the first and second centuries. 

If the baptizing of infants is not expressly [rather 
not specially'] commanded in Scripture [in Matt. 
xxviii. 19, it is as expressly commanded for them as 
for others], I trust I have shown that there was no 
reason to look for such a command, but the contrary, 
as the practice was well known to the Jews in our 
Saviour's time in the reception of proselytes, and 
therefore our Saviours commission to his Apostles in 
St. Matthew is no more expressly for adults than for 
infants ; it is a general command to baptize all na- 
tions. But I trust I have proved that the baptizing 
of infants is clearly implied in the ^ew Testament, 
and being implied, is as truly proved to exist, as if 
it had been directly mentioned. So with regard 
to the second century ; if not mentioned directly, 
it is certainly to be inferred from what is said. For 
let it be observed that when Infant Baptism is 
directly spoken of, as in the case of Origen, Cyprian, 



78 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

and Augustine, it is not introduced for the purpose 
of defending or enforcing its practice, but on ac- 
count of some subject with which it was connected. 
It is always taken for granted, as universally exist- 
ing ; it is never decreed by any Council, not even by 
the one you suppose; it is never censured as un- 
scriptural. The case of Tertullian will be presently 
considered. The writers of the first and second cen- 
turies, that is, during the Apostolic times, and the 
first century after, were few in number. The pieces 
they left are short, were not written for the purpose 
of setting forth, particularly, ecclesiastical practices, 
but for other purposes. Can you show any instance 
in their writings, in which, [granting the practice] 
of baptizing infants, it must necessarily have been 
mentioned ? 

But you will not find it so easy to answer the dif- 
ficulties with which Anti-Psedo-Baptists are fatally 
embarrassed, by the entire absence, from all antiq- 
uity, even of a single syllable of censure of Infant 
Baptism. Much less is there any instance of any 
person who had been re-baptized simply because that 
person had been baptized in infancy. There were no 
SUCH Anabaptists then, from whatever other causes 
they may have existed. And the pretense set up by 
some to the contrary, is, as I dare say you know, 
entirely untrue. How totally difi*erent is the case 
now ! I suppose there can hardly be found any 
writer or preacher of your denomination, who is not 
perpetually [asserting] and urging the unscriptural 
character and invalidity of Infant Baptism. How 
can this difference be accounted for ? Plainly in one 
of these three ways. 



BAPTIZIl^G OF IXFAiTTS DEFENDED. 79 

First, Let it be remembered that all ancient 
Christians and all modern Christians who practice 
baptism, with the exception, among the latter, of the 
open Communion Baptists, hold that no unbaptized 
person ought to be admitted to Christian fellowship, 
to the partaking of the holy Communion. Now sup- 
posing Infant Baptism to have been introduced grad- 
ually or suddenly, I care not which is supposed, how 
comes it that by those who adhere to Adult Baptism 
alone, those who practiced Infant Baptism should 
never have been refused Christian fellowship ? Did 
they think Infant Baptism a true Baptism, though 
not Apostolical, to be allowed, though not to be en- 
forced or even recommended ; or did they yield to 
what they condemned by their own practice, with- 
out a word of reproof, although we find every other 
form of supposed or real false opinion noted and 
condemned ? Or, secondly, did those who them- 
selves refused to practicelnfant Baptism, consider it, 
as some moderns, a not improper, unjustifiable, or 
censurable, but just development of Christianity? 
Or, thirdly, that which was really the case, there was 
no such thing as either the gradual or sudden intro- 
duction of Infant Baptism, after the days of the 
Apostles, but that it had always existed, always 
been practiced from the beginning of Christianity? 
But one supposition remains, that contended for by 
Robert Hall, namely, That although the practice of 
baptizing infants was introduced after the times of 
the Apostles, [and] was never practiced in the 
Apostolic times, and was thus an unscriptural inno- 
vation, and that the ancients considered Baptism as 
a necessary introduction to Christian fellowship, 



80 



BAPTIZIJs-G OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 



Still they never, contrary to the almost universal 
practice of the Anti-Paedo-Baptists of the present 
clay, refused Communion to those who practiced 
the baptism of infants, or who had received 
baptism in infancy. Now, this appears to me ut- 
terly incredible ! I cannot be convinced that the 
early Christians, who insisted so strongly on bap- 
tism, should have looked on the baptizing of infants 
as an unscriptural innovation, and yet, at the same 
time, have never in a single instance, not in a line, 
not m a word, not in a syllable, not at any time, or 
by any one person, objected to Communion with 
any person baptized in infancy, and whose bap- 
tism was [suppose,] considered on that account 
invalid. That there were frequent instances of re- 
baptizmg, there can be no question ; Catholics would 
m certain cases re-baptize those, whether adults or 
infants [who had been baptized by heretics] ; and so, 
on the other hand, the heretics and schismatics 
would re-baptize, whether adults or infants, those 
who had been baptized by the Catholics. We there- 
fore frequently meet with the term Ana-baptist in 
antiquity, that is, a re-baptizer. But that one was 
ever re-baptized simply and solely because that person 
had been baptized in infancy, not a single example 
IS on record till we come to the beginning of the 
twelfth century, eleventh from the Apostles. And 
any pretense to the contrary is a falsification of 
history. As to the supposed silence of the writers of 
the first and second centuries, if it were entirely 
true, as it is not, I think you yourself might be 
brought to confess that even such silence of those 
early times, is not by any means a proof of the non- 



BAPTIZIXG OF IXFA]S^TS DEFEXDED. 81 

existence of an important fact. I dare say you be- 
lieve in the inspiration and canonical authority of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews, and that it must, there- 
fore, have been written by St. Paul. But what au- 
thority have you for these three particulars, espe- 
cially the last, before the time of Clemens Alexan- 
drinus in the year 190, or after the time of the 
Apostles, 90, the latter part of the first century, 
from the Apostles ? 

But let it be observed, that the testimony in favor 
of Infant Baptism is much more uniform, much, more 
perfect, than that in favor of the Pauline author- 
ship, or the inspiration of this Epistle. By Tertul- 
lianit was assigned to Barnabas, by others to St. 
Luke, by others to Clement (see Michaelis' Intro- 
duction and Home's Introduction); and however 
generally it was received by the Oriental churches 
as inspired, it was by no means received as generally 
by the Latin churches, and especially was not re- 
ceived by the Church of Rome. (See Eusebius Ecc. 
Hist, book 3, ch. 3, and Yalesius, note D. ) j^ow, as 
regards the baptizing of infants, there is not a sylla- 
ble, even, to intimate that the practice was contrary 
to the institution of Christ, that it was not Apos- 
tolical. Whereas, the same Clement of Alexandria 
says: "And if any one be by trade a fisherman, he 
will do well to think of an Apostle, and the children 
taken out of the water :" which, as Wall observes. 
Vol. I., p. 66, can only refer to the baptism of chil- 
dren, and of course [to] such baptism being prac- 
ticed by the Apostles. And Origen, but a few years, 
from ten to twenty, after Clement, states expressly that 
" the Church had from the Apostles a tradition to 
4* 



83 BAPTIZING OF IXFAXTS DEFENDED. 

gire baptism even to infants," And yet yon receire, 
I hope, the Epistle to the Hebrews, while on so much 
greater evidence yon reject Infant Baptism. 

I now proceed to the quotations from the father- 
of the Church in favor of Infant Baptism, observing 
that as I have very few of the original works from 
which my quotations are taken, I am indebte " 
almost entirely to Drs. Wall and Hammond for thosr 
I have employed, using only the English translations, 

I begin with Justin Martyr, who wrote less 
than seventy years after the commencement of 
Christianity, and about forty years after the 
Apostolic age, that is, after the death of Sl John. 
" We also who by Him have had access to God, have- 
not received this carnal circumcision, but the 
spiritual circumcision which Enoch, and those 
like him, observed: and we have received it by 
baptism, by the mercy of God, because we were sin- 
ners; and it is allowed to all persons to receive it 
by the same way.** (Dialogue with Tvpho, p. 59, 
Wall, YoL L, p. 50.) Here it is most manifest that 
Justin Martyr institutes a parallel between circum- 
cision and baptism, and as he says nothing to the 
contrary, it is plain that he held that, as infants 
were to be circumcised, they were to be baptized. 
Again, in his first Apology, commonly given as the 
second, he tells n-s " Several persons among us, of sixty 
or seventy years old, of both sexes, who were discipled 
[or made disciples] to Clirist, from their childhood, 
do continue un corrupted. 

Of this quotation I observe, first, that the word trans- 
lated ''' made disciples *' (ematheteuthe5an),is the pas- 
sive voice of the same word St. Matthew has ^ven us 



BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 83 

in the commission of onrSayiour to his Apostles, just 
before his ascension, and is explanatory of the use 
of the term in that place. From Acts ii. 26, we 
learn that disciple and Christian were synonymous 
terms ; now he was never called a Christian who was 
not baptized. These disciples of sixty or seventy 
years, who were made disciples or Christians, that is, 
we say, were baptized in childhood, must, therefore, 
have been baptized in the first century, in the Apos- 
tolic age ; that is, twenty or thirty years before the 
death of St. John. You may, indeed, say here, as in 
the case of Tertullian, that these children must have 
been from six to eight years of age. But you A^'ould 
have no more authority for saying so, than you have 
for saying it in the case of Tertullian, as I shall pres- 
ently show. Besides, what children of six, or, generally 
speaking, of eight years old, are capable of pledging 
themselves, on sufficient knowledge, to a life of 
faith and holiness ? As children are spoken of in 
general terms, we have a right to conclude that all 
were intended who could properly be considered as 
children, consequently infants. 

My next quotation is from Irenseus. Irenaeus 
wrote about sixty-seven years after the time of St. 
John, that is, after the Apostolic age. From Euse- 
bius we learn, 1. 5, c. 20, that he was a disciple of 
Poly carp, who was a hearer of St. John. Dodwell 
supposes he was born three or four years before, 
others that he was born five or six years after, St. 
John. His testimony, if we can show it to be in 
favor of the baptizing of infants, must be certainly 
of very great value for its high antiquity. As it 
cannot he supposed for a moment that Irenaeus orig- 



84 BAPTIZING OF IXFAXTS DEFENDED. 

mated the baptizing of infants, he must have fol- 
lowed his master Polycarp in this as well as in his 
other opinions. Indeed, there is great probability 
that Polycarp himself was baptized in infancy, 
for he speaks at his martyrdom of having served 
Christ for eighty-six years, and as it is not probable 
that he was then much, if at all, older than eighty- 
six, and baptism was always looked on as the be- 
ginning of the service of Christ, or of the Christian 
life, he must have been baptized at a very early age, 
most probably in early childhood or even infancy. 

But to return to Irenaeus : " He," that is, Christ, 
" came to save all persons by himself. All, I mean, who 
by him are regenerated unto God ; infants, and little 
ones, and children, and youths, and elder persons." 
Irenseus adversiis hcereses. See Wall, Vol. I., p. 56. 

The force of this testimony to the baptizing of 
infants is to be found in the use of the expression, 
regenerated. I assert, and the assertion cannot be 
gainsaid, that whatever other idea the ancient Chris- 
tian writers may have connected with the term re- 
generated, they invariably included in it that of 
being baptized. When, therefore, any one was said 
to be regenerated, his baptism was necessarily im- 
plied ; and without being baptized, no one was ever 
spoken of as regenerated. Take, for instance, so 
early an author as Justin Martyr : " Then we bring 
them to some place where there is water, and they 
are regenerated by the same way of regeneration by 
which we were regenerated ; for they are washed 
with water in the name of God, the Father and 
Lord of all things, and our Saviour Jesus Christ, 
and of the Holy Spirit." (Justin, Apologia prima.) 



BAPTIZING OF lifPANTS DEFENDED. 85 

Wall, Vol. L, p. 52. When, therefore, IrensGiis 
speaks of infants being regenerated, their baptism 
is as certainly declared by implication as it wonld 
be declared by the direct use of the term baptized. 
Suppose, as an illustration, it were said of any for- 
eigner that he had become a citizen of the United 
States, would it not be necessarily implied that he 
had taken the oath of allegiance ? 

My next author is Tertullian, who wrote one hun- 
dred years after the death of the Apostle St. John, 
between one hundred and sixty and one hundred 
and seventy years after the very beginning of Chris- 
tianity, and at the end of the second or beginning 
of the third century after the birth of our Lord. 
The testimony of Tertullian to the practice of In- 
fant Baptism, at the time he wrote, is so plain and 
express, that you endeavor to escape from it, first, by 
telling us (p. 61) that it is very doubtful whether 
Tertullian speaks of the baptism of infants at all, 
when he strongly protests against the baptism of 
young persons ; and next, by a false translation of 
the word nor int. In order to show certainly how 
fruitless is your attempt to escape such testimony, 
I think it necessary to give the original Latin, as 
found in Wall, together with your translation and 
his, that it may be judged which is the correct 
one :* " Itaque pro cujusque person se condition e ac 
dispositione, etiam setate, cunctatio baptism! utilior 
est praBcipue tamen circa parvulos. Quid enini 

* [Tertullian objected to what lie found established in this 
and other points, and is charged by Mosheim wixh objecting, 
after he became a Montanist, to the New Testament as 
not strict enough.] 



86 BAPl'IZING OF IXFAXTS DEFENDED. 

necesse est [* * *] sponsores etiam periculo ingeri ? 
quia et ipsi per mortal itatem destituere promissiones 
suas possunt, et proventu malae indolis falli. Ait 
quidem Dominus, nolite illos prohibere ad me 
venire. Veniaut ergo dum adolescunt, veniant dum 
discunt, dum quo veniant docentur ; fiant Chris- 
tiani quum Christum nosse potuerint. Quid fes- 
tinat innocens aetas ad remissionem peccatorum ? 
* * * JSTorint petere salutem, ut petenti dedisse 
videaris. Non minori de causa, innupti quoque pro- 
crastinandi, in quibis tentatio praeparata est, tam 
virginibus per maturitatem, quam viduis per vaca- 
tionem, donee aut nubant aut continenti^ corrobo- 
rentur.'^ Wall, Vol. I., p. 73. 

Your, or I rather suppose I ought to say, your 
authority's translation, is as follows : " For it is de- 
sirable to postpone baptism, according to the posi- 
tion and disposition of each individual, as well as in 
reference to his age, especially so in the case of chil- 
dren. Where is the necessity for placing the spon- 
sors in jeopardy, who may be prevented by death 
from performing their promises, or may be deceived 
by the breaking out of an evil disposition ? It is 
true our Lord said, * Hinder them not from coming 
nnto me,' but they may do so when they have ar- 
rived at the age of * * . When they understand 
Christianity let them profess themselves Christians. 
They' just know how to ask for salvation, that you 
may seem to give to him that asketh. It is for a 
reason equally important that unmarried women, 
both widows and virgins, are kept waiting, either 
till they marry or are confirmed in the habit of a 
chaste, single life." 



BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 87 

Wall's translation is the following: "Therefore, 
according to every one's condition and disposition, 
and also their age, the delaying of baptism is more 
profitable, especially in the case of Utile children ; 
for what need is there [ ] that the godfathers 

(sponsors) should be brought into danger — because 
they may either fail of their promises by death, or 
they may be mistaken by a child's proving of a 
wicked disposition. Our Lord says, indeed, *Do not 
forbid them to come unto me,' therefore, let them 
come when they are grown up ; let them come when 
they understand — when they are instructed whither 
it is that they come ; let them be made Christians 
when they can know Christ. * * * * Yqj. ^o 
less reason unmarried persons ought to be kept off, 
who are likely to come into temptation; as well 
as those that were never married on account of com- 
ing to ripeness — as those in widowhood for the miss 
of their partner, until they either marry or are con- 
firmed in continence." 

You tell us, " Tertullian here speaks of those who 
could just ask for salvation, and therefore could 
not have been infants." You further state from 
Bunsen, that "Tertullian was not arguing against In- 
fant Baptism at all, then unknown, but of little 
growing children, from six to ten years of age." 
You further say, " Church history tells us about this 
time, among many other innovations, the custom of 
having sponsors to answer for catechumens was first 
introduced, and together with every other form used 
in the baptism of older persons, was transferred to 
the baptism of infants in the fourth and fifth cen- 
turies." Now these last two assertions are entirely 



88 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

gratuitous. Wliat Clmrch history tells us of this 
transferring of sponsors in the fourth and fifth cen- 
turies? None whatever, unless probably such a 
one as Orchard's ! What possible warrant have you 
for saying that Tertullian meant children from six 
to ten years of age? None whatever. Certainly 
there is nothing of the kind in Tertullian, not a 
syllable — you have put all that in. To be sure, you 
endeavor to give some color to your assertion, by 
translating parvulos imperfectly into children in- 
stead of little children. Who ever heard of a little 
child of ten years old or even of six ? Is it your 
practice ever to baptize children of six or seven 
years old, and of course according to your princi- 
ples on their own responsibility ? The word parvulos, 
according to Tertullian, will include all such as are 
unable to answer for themselves, and therefore will 
include infants. (See Facciolatus' lexicon.) You 
further endeavor to support your wrong cause by 
introducing into the text of Tertullian a word 
which is not there, "uoscunt," I suppose for one 
which is there, " norint; " or else by a wrong trans- 
lation, thus entirely changing the meaning of the 
sentence. A strange mistake for a Latin scholar, for 
I must not suppose you would do this purposely. 
You say, *'They just know how to ask." Norint 
being the subjunctive, will admit of no such ren- 
dering, but must be translated either "Let them 
know," or " they should know how to ask," plainly 
showing they were too young to be able to ask for 
baptism themselves. It is not surprising that Anti- 
Paedo-Baptists should do their best or their worst, 
whichever it may be called, to get rid of the testi- 



BAPTIZIiq^G OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 89 

mony of Terfcullian. Tertullian recommends the 
delaying of baptism in three cases ; first, of little 
children, including, of course, infants ; secondly, of 
young persons and widowed persons; the first, lest 
the responsibility incurred by the sponsors should 
be in vain, the second lest they should yield to the 
temptations to which they would be subjected. Ter- 
tullian's recommending militates no more against 
our Eedeemer's authorizing the baptizing of infants 
than it does against .his authorizing the haptizing of 
young persons and widoiced persons. Secondly. 
From the words of Tertullian, it is manifest that 
the baptism of infants was practiced at the time he 
wrote ; that is, less than one hundred and seventy 
years from the very beginning of the Gospel, and 
hut one hundred after the death of St. Mm. 'Nov 
did the baptism of infants appear suddenly, or grad- 
ually introduced. Certainly, from Tertullian there 
is not the least intimation that either was the case, 
nor can we find any such intimation from any other 
writer. The baptism of infants being as common, 
though, of course, not so frequent a practice as 
that of adults [where heathens were to be converted], 
there would be no particular mention made of it, 
unless the occasion should call for such particular 
mention. But it would have been very much to 
Tertullian's purpose, if, in his recommendation of 
the delay of baptism, he conld have urged that it 
was an innovation from apostolic practice, and his 
silence makes it highly probable that he thought it 
Apostolic, as he must have thought the baptism of 
young or widowed persons. 

The next witness is Origen, whose testimony of 



90 BAPTIZING OP INFANTS DEFENDED. 

tlie practice of the baptism of little children, in- 
cluding infants, is so frequent and so express, that 
one would think no ingenuity on the part of you 
or your friends would enable you to escape from it. 
Take first homily on St. Luke : " Having occasion 
given in this place, I will mention a thing that 
causes frequent inquiries among the brethren. In- 
fants " (parvulos, little children, including infants), 
'• are baptized for the forgiveness of sins. Of what 
sins ? or, when have they sinned ? or, how can any 
reason of the laver in their case hold good, but 
according to that sense that we mentioned even 
now ? None is free from pollution, though his life 
be but the length of one day upon the earth ; and 
it is for that reason, because, by the sacrament of 
baptism, the pollution of our birth is taken away, 
that infants are baptized." Again, in his comment 
on the Epistle to the Romans, he says : " For this 
also it was, that the Church had from the Apostles 
a tradition to give baptism even to infants " (parvu- 
lis, to little children) ; " for they to whom the divine 
mysteries were committed knew that there is in all 
persons the natural pollution of sin, which must 
be done away by water and the Spirit." These are 
not, by very many, as may be seen in Dr. Wall on 
Infant Baptism, the only passages in which Origen 
treats of the baptism of A'ery young children (par- 
vulorum) ; but these afford suflBcient proof that the 
baptizing of infants "was a common p7^actice in his 
days universally acknowledged, for his object was 
not to prove its evidence, but to show the reasona- 
bleness of its practice." Let it be further observed, 
that the testimony of Origen is of peculiar force ; 



BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 91 

for, as we learn from Eusebius, book vi., ch. ii. and 
xix., his progenitors were Christians, which must, at 
the very least, include his grandfather, if not his 
great-grandfather. Origen himself was, in all proba- 
bility, baptized when an infant, or a parvulus 
(a very little child), for he was instructed in 
the Christian religion from childhood ; and as 
we find nothing said of his baptism, and he was 
certainly baptized, it must have been in his infancy, 
or when a parvulus, and we also see that he was' 
fully entitled to speak of the baptism of very young 
children, including infants, as Apostolical, as it was 
no doubt a tradition of his family. He was born in 
the year 186 of the Christian era, that is, less than 
one hundred and fifty years from the beginning of 
the Christian Church. His father was martyred 
for his faith when his son Origen was but seventeen, 
that is two hundred and three years from the birth 
of Christ, but three years after Tertullian wrote, 
less than one hundred and seventy after the com- 
mencement of Christianity, and but about one hun- 
dred after the death of St. John. Supposing his 
father and grandfather to be each twenty-five years 
old at the birth of their respective sons, this would 
bring the tradition of the family to within, at the 
furthest, fifty years of the death of St. John. 

You attempt, indeed, to get rid of Origen's testi- 
mony by telling us that " Tertullian does not say one 
word of new-born infants; neither does Origen, 
when his expressions are accurately weighed." 

In answer to this, I observe, that this is a new 
device by the Anti-Paedo-Baptists to get rid of Ori- 
gen's testimony, for I do not remember its being 



92 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

resorted to by any of the earlier writers of your 
sect. Secondly. Origen himself settles the question 
by stating, in speaking of the baptism of these little 
children, " that none is free from pollution, though 
his life be but the length of one day upon the 
earth ;" and that therefore infants (parvuli, little 
children) are baptized. Thirdly. The word (parvuli, 
little children, including infants, as shown before,) 
is more appropriate than would be the word " in- 
fants;" for the former not only includes mere in- 
fants, but also all others Avho would be unable to 
answer for themselves, but must have sponsors. 
Lastly, as will be immediately shown, the baptizing 
of infants, as well as other little children, was uni- 
versally practiced, not introduced, as you would try 
to make out, at the time of the Council of Carthage, 
held under Cyprian, one year before the death of 
Origen. We may see then, clearly, that Origen 
and Cyprian must have been for many years co- 
temporary, one born in Alexandria, Origen, and the 
other at Carthage (see Cave's Lit. Hist., pp. 70 and 78) ; 
both, then, of ]S"orth Africa. Origen flourished, ac- 
cording to Dr. Wall, from A. J). 210, from 110 after 
St. John, according to Cave (Lit. Hist.), from 230 
to 254 (130-154) from the Apostle St. John. But 
these dates are not inconsistent, the latter date be- 
ing two years after Origen was made presbyter, and 
the former from about the time he was appointed 
public catechist of the Church at Alexandria. Let us, 
then, examine him as a witness on this question of 
infant or little children's baptism. We will suppose, 
then, three interlocutors, namely, Origen, an Anti- 
Pgedo-Baptist, and a Psedo-Baptist. Let us begin 



BAPTIZIITG OF INFAITTS DEFEN"DED. 93 

with the Pffido-Baptist. P. to Origen. — I must inform 
yon that a body of Christians, professing to be the 
whole of Christ's visible Church, exists at present, 
denying the validity of Infant Baptism, and, as you 
are an early and copious writer of the Church, we wish 
to put to you some questions on the subject. It is 
understood, from an ecclesiastical historian who 
flourished about seventy years after your decease, 
that you were of Christian descent, that your father 
and grandfather at least, if not your great-grand- 
father, were Christians before, and that you were 
from childhood instructed in the principles of the 
Christian faith ; I, therefore, conclude, though my 
friend here may not, that you must have been bap- 
tized in infancy, as nothing appears to the contrary. 
We find, from the same historian, that you were a 
man of great learning ; had visited Rome, Greece, 
Palestine; you must have been, therefore, acquainted 
with the practices of these several places. We learn 
that you were born about one hundred and eighty- 
five years after what is called the Christian Era, the 
supposed birth of Christ, or about eighty-six years 
after the death of the Apostle St. John ; that your 
father was martyred when you were seventeen, and 
that you must have been nearly, if not quite, eight 
years cotemporary with the celebrated metropolitan 
Bishop of Carthage, Cyprian, since he was converted 
to Christianity in the year 346, and you did not die 
till 254, the year after a famous council held at 
Carthage in 254. We wish to hear, then, what you 
have to say of the baptism of infants, or say of little 
children, whether the phrase includes infants, or 
do you mean to speak of children from six to ten 



94 BAPTIZING OF IXFAXTS DEFENDED. 

years of age ? Origen. — Is there any mention by me 
of children from six to ten — how came this notion ? 
P.— It is one lately advanced, and. very much advo- 
cated by the sect to which my friend here belongs. 
A. P. — AVJiat is there in your writings which shows 
you meant to include infants in your baptism of 
little children ? Origen.—Do I not state that "bap- 
tism of little ones was given not for their own. sins, 
which they could not have committed, but for that 
pollution from which none is free, though his life 
be but a day upon the earth ? " I cannot understand 
how this should not include all who, from their age, 
do not commit actual sins. A. P. — At any rate, I 
presume your remarks are confined to Alexandria, 
where you were born ? Origen. — Why so ? Do I 
make any limitation of that sort in my remarks? 
The historian, you inform me, who flourished about 
seventy years after my death, does he not inform 
you that I had been in Rome, Greece, Palestine, 
Antioch, and Cappadocia; do I intimate at all that 
the customs of these countries, as regards the bap- 
tism of cliildren, was different from that of Alex- 
andria or Africa ? A. P. — You speak of the baptism 
of little children as being an Apostolic tradition — 
what authority have you for saying so ? Origen. — I 
should think the best, inasmuch as my father and 
grandfather at least were Christians before me, and 
I have not given the least intimation that their 
impressions in tliis matter were different from 
mine. 

So much, then, for the testimony of Origen ; let 
"US proceed to tha*; of Cyprian. 

In the year 253, A. D., or 153 after St. John, there 



BAPTIZING OF IJfFAXTS DEFE^-DED. 95 

was held at Carthage, under its Metropolitan, Cyp- 
rian, a council of sixty-six bishops. Daring the 
sitting of the council, a letter is received from a 
country bishop by the name of Fidus, who makes 
inquiry on two subjects. The first of these does 
not concern us. The second is, whether an infant 
can be, or ought to be, baptized before the eighth 
day after its birth ? — in allusion, plainly, to circum- 
cision. The unanimous answer to which is, that a 
child may be baptized the first day of its birth. 

On this decision of the council I haye these ob- 
servations to make : First, that the question of Infant 
Baptism, in general, does not at all arise ; it is not 
at all discussed ; it is taken for granted as univer- 
sally admitted. Secondly, that tliere were sixty-six 
bishops assembled in the council, each of whom 
must have had not less than from eight to ten pres- 
byters under him, which would make, at the very 
least, five hundred congregations. Thirdly, many 
of these bishops must have been sixty or seventy 
years old, which would carry the knowledge of the 
practice of their times beyond the time of Tertullian, 
or, in other words, less than one hundred years from 
the Apostolic age, or the death of St. John. 

Now, there are certain remarkable particulars in 
the unanimous determination of this council, de- 
serving our notice. First, we find in this council 
no discussion whatever of the subject of Infant 
Baptism in general. No one undertakes to insist 
on its propriety, on its Apostolic or Scriptural char- 
acter ; no one undertakes to defend the practice, to 
argue in favor of it ; much less does any member 
of the council pretend to impugn or oppose it. 



96 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

Again, but for an accidental inquiry, we should 
have had no testimony from tliis council of the un- 
doubted existence, the universal prevalence, of Infant 
Baptism, in at least all that district of country in 
which these sixty-six bisliops resided — from which 
we may plainly see of what little force against Infant 
Baptism the silence of authors is to be regarded, 
when but for a mere accident there would have been 
entire silence on this subject even in this council. 
Even now, when the Scriptural character of Infant 
Baptism is so hotly contested by Anti-Paedo-Baptists, 
you will scarcely find a single author among them 
who does not introduce the subject ; you will meet 
with many Paedo-Baptists who have little, many 
who have nothing at all on the subject, even when 
the contrary might be expected. I will instance in 
two cases, one in Mosheim's De rebus Christianorum 
ante Constantinum, even in that passage, Ch. V., 
note, in which he speaks of the Jewish proselyte 
baptism as preceding John's baptism, he makes no 
mention of their baptizing infants ; another, in 
Home's Introduction, Part III., ch. 2, § 2, where this 
proselyte baptism is also treated of, but no mention 
of Infant Baptism. 

You labor very hard to do away, then, with this 
perfect evidence of the entire establishment and 
wide prevalence of Infant Baptism in the year after 
St. John, 153, but ineffectually. 

You begin with saying you submit four or five 
propositions. First. You say that you have demon- 
strated that "Infant Baptism did not originate with 
Christ or his Apostles . . . but in the beginning of 
the third century." I trust I have clearly proven 



BAPTIZIN"Ct of I^FAISTTS DEFEI^DED. 97 

the direct contrary, and that Infant Baptism did 
originate with our Lord and his Apostles. 

Secondly. You say, "that Infant Baptism origi- 
nated in heresy — the heresy of baptismal regenera- 
tion." As I have already discussed this matter, I 
shall add but this to my previous remarks, that if 
what you say were true, Infant Baptism must have 
had a very early origin, for the whole Christian 
Church held the doctrine, and must therefore have 
been heretical. Justin Martyr, forty years after 
St. John, held the doctrine, as I have shown already ; 
he must therefore have been a heretic ; and oh ! 
worst of all by far, St. Paul must have been a her- 
etic. See Titus iii. 5. 

Allow me to ask you one or two questions on this 
your second proposition. I hope you will answer 
them fully. You say that dying infants are, though 
not baptized, saved by the merits of our Eedeemer; 
are they saved regenerate or un regenerate ? If re- 
generate, are they regenerate at death in consequence 
of their death ? If so, what is your authority 
for saying so? Are dying infants only regen- 
erated in infancy ? [Yoio make inferences as 
positive as express statements.] Or, are all in- 
fants regenerated at their birth ? Then must 
many lose their regeneration, or else we find a 
countless number of regenerate persons who are 
liars, thieves, debauchees, murderers. If they lose 
their infantile regeneration by ungodliness and 
wrong-doing, some of these may be and surely are 
converted from their ungodly and wicked life to a 
true Christian life. What would you then call their 
converted state, a re-regeneration or a restoration to 
5 



98 BAPTIZIKG OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

regeneration ? I pray you define for us exactly what 
you mean by regeneration ; and give us your in- 
terpretation of John iii. 3 and 5. 

Your third proposition is, that " the first appear- 
ance of Infant Baptism was in a corrupt age of the 
Church, and in North Africa, the most superstitious 
and corrupt part of the Christian world in that 
age." That it originated in North Africa, I trust I 
have proved by the testimony of Justin Martyr, 
who was never in Africa in all his life, and by Ire- 
nseus, who was a native of Asia Minor, and after- 
wards bishop of Lyons, in Gaul, not to be true. 
See Cave's Liter. Hist. That Infant Baptism did not 
originate in Africa, but whenever intimated or di- 
rectly spoken of, is found to have existed every- 
where. As to your attempt to ally Infant Baptism 
wdth what you try to represent as the peculiar cor- 
ruptions of Northern Africa, it is easily answered. 
First, if you mean that these corruptions were the 
cause of Infant Baptism, this would be the fallacy 
of " non causa pro causa," for you can show no nec- 
essary connection between them, and in the same 
manner any other true doctrine might be repre- 
sented as the effect of these corruptions. Secondly, 
in representing the practices of which you speak as 
accompanying the baptism of infants, and the value 
attached to a celibate life as confined or belonging 
peculiarly to North Africa, you show but little ac- 
quaintance with the history of the Christian Church 
at large, for these practices and this opinion of the 
superior excellence of a celibate life existed through- 
out the Church, — on the latter, especially, see Mo- 
sheim de rebus ante Const., second century, p. 35. 



BAPTIZING OF IXFAXTS DEFEXDED. 99 

It is the first time I ever heard it was abhorred by 
Protestants, iDasmuch as it was an opinion enter- 
tained by the Apostle St. Paul (but you do not 
always agree with the Apostle), 1 €or. vii. 7, 24, 38, 
and even it would seem by our blessed Eedeemer 
himself (Matt. xix. 12). That many of the ancient 
Church carried the opinion to an extravagant de- 
gree, there may be no doubt ; still it is not opposed 
to, but in conformity with the teaching of Holy 
Scripture. You attempt to make it appear that In- 
fant Baptism, originating in Africa, was chiefly con- 
fined to that country for a long time. You en- 
deavor to prove this by stating that no Latin writer 
out of Africa makes mention of it as a practice till 
about the year 374 A. D., and, secondly, that '• es- 
pecially the Apostolical Constitutions" of the close of 
the third century, "make no allusion to Infant 
Baptism." I answer, first, by asking who are 
these Latin writers out of Africa from whom we 
should expect allusions to Infant Baptism ? Sec- 
ondly, that the silence of at least one Latin writer 
out of Africa proves incontestably the existence of 
Infant Baptism in Eome, at least, and consequently, 
in all Italy. There was in this very century a sharp 
controversy between Cyprian of Carthage and 
Stephen of Rome, on the subject of re-baptizing 
those who had been baptized by heretics; Cyprian 
contending that they ought to be, and Stephen that 
they ought not to be, if the due form had been ob- 
served of baptizing in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy G-host. (Eusebius, book 
vii. c. 3). But in this dispute there is not the least 
intimation whatever that there was the slio-htest.dif- 



100 BAPTIZING OF IXFAKTS DEFENDED. 

ference of opinion between them on the subject of 
Infant Baptism. How can this silence be accounted 
for, except on the supposition that both held and 
practiced Infant Saptism, and if so, we may be sure 
it must have been, from the bishop of Eome, held 
and j)racticed throughout Italy. Thirdly, we find 
an evidence of its existence in other countries be- 
sides Italy and Africa, stronger than that of one or 
more writers. The council of Eliberis, in Spain, 
was held A. D. 305, or 205 after St. John. (See Cave, 
p. 221.) At this council the following decree was 
passed: "If any one go over from the Catholic 
Church, to any heresy, and return again to the 
Church, it is resolved that penance be not denied 
to such an one, because he acknowledges his fault. 
Let him be in the state of ]3enance for ten years, and 
after ten years, he ought to be admitted to com- 
munion." 

But, if they were infants when they were carried 
over, "inasmuch as it was not by their own fault 
they sinned, they ought to be admitted without de- 
lay " (incunctanter) . 

The baptism of these persons carried over in in- 
fancy is clearly implied, for no one was ever sup- 
posed to belong to the Church who was not bap- 
tized, and consequently, if not baptized, could not 
be said to be carried over from it ; and again, when 
they are allowed to be received at once to com- 
munion, it is not required to be baptized before be- 
ing admitted to communion. 

You lay great stress on the omission of any men- 
tion, as you suppose, of Infant Baptism in the Apos- 
tolical Constitutions. But you are greatly mistaken, 



BAPTIZING OF IXFAXT3 DEFEXDED. 101 

for -what you require is there,, and not by an allusion 
but by direct injunction in stronger terms than you 
require, for we have in the sixth book and c. 15 : 
•• Baptize your infants {v?J7ria), and bring them up in 
nurture and admonition of God. For, He says, 
Suffer the little children to come unto me, and for- 
bid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven/' 
(Cotelerius' edition of the Apostolical Fathers, 
Vol. I.) 

As another argument against the general practice 
of Infant Baptism, you bring forward the case of 
several persons who, as you allege, were baptized 
after they were grown, although their parents were 
Christians at the time of their birth. To make this 
argument of any validity you must prove two things, 
first, that the parents of these persons were Chris- 
ans at the time of their children's birth ; and sec- 
ondly, that if so, the children were not baptized in 
infancy. I challenge you to prove these two points 
in a single case, except possibly in the first, in which 
you have by such an egregious mistake substituted 
one person for another, a bishop who lived in the 
sixth century, for one who lived in the fourth — a 
bishop of Rome for a bishop of Xazianzum. When 
you have adduced your proofs it will be time enough 
for me to answer them. 

You say, on page seventy-five, that " When Infant 
Baptism first emerges into history, we find that the 
child was first anointed with oil on the brow, ears, 
back, hands, and feet," etc. If you mean that these 
ceremonies were first introduced at the time you say 
Infant Baptism was first introduced, this is noto- 
riously untrue, for these ceremonies were used in the 



102 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

baptism of adults as well as infauts. If you mean 
that they were also used in the case of infants, that 
is true enough, but what is it to your purpose ? For 
as to these ceremonies being any objection to Infant 
Baptism, they would be equally an objection to 
adult baptism. And as to any pretense you may set 
np that they are as much of Apostolical authority 
as Infant Baptism, you cannot, as far as I remember, 
find any single ancient author who has made such 
an assertion; and that they were not considered by 
the ancients as an essential part of the sacrament of 
baptism will appear from the twenty-seventh chap- 
ter, seventh book of the Apostolical Constitutions : 
"But if neither oil or ointment be present, wa- 
ter is sufficient both for the anointing and the 
seal." 

You say, page 80, that Infant Baptism was never 
sanctioned by any Council till the Council of Car- 
thage, 418. If you mean by " sanctioned," approved of, 
assented to, in any Council, this would be so palpably 
contrary to the fact, that you yourself have confessed 
the contrary, page 67, in acknowledging that Infant 
Baptism was recognized by the Council of Car- 
thage, held A. D. 253, or 153 after the Apostolic age. 
But if you mean by '^ sanctioned by any Council," de- 
creed by any Council, before the Council of Car- 
thage, A. D. 418, then your assertion is not only true 
up to the time of the Council of Carthage, but of 
that Council, too. For Infant Baptism was never 
decreed by any Council Why should it, indeed, 
when its divine institution was universally acknow- 
ledged ? Councils utter their decrees regarding arti- 
cles of faith which have been called in question. 



BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 103 

But who before the twelfth century ever questioned 
the scriptural chariicter of Infant Baptism ? * 

In your fruitless attempt to lessen the proof of 
Infant Baptism from the authority of Cyprian, or of 
the Council of Carthage, held under him, you fur- 
nish arguments to refute your own argument. Thus, 
after speaking of Cyprian as the great advocate oi 
Infant Baptism, and of the celibate state, you tell 
us that the morals of the virgins or nuns were worse 
in that age, and country, than they have ever been 
anywhere since. From this it would appear that 
Infant Baptism could not have been a corruptor, but 
a purifier of morals, as the nuns were not so bad 
after its introduction, according to your account, 
into North Africa. Page 74. Sq again, page 71, in 
your quotation from Isaac Taylor, you sanction his 
assertion, " That the first five centuries, or we might 
say, the first three centuries of the Christian his- 
tory, comprise a sample of every form and variety 
of intellectual and moral aberration," from which it 
would seem that you, with him, consider the first 
three centuries worse than the fourth and fifth ; yet, 
according to you. Infant Baptism was introduced 
into North Africa in the third, consequently it did 
not corrupt but improve mankind. Page 73. Thirdly, 
you give us to understand that the doctrine of Bap- 
tismal Regeneration began with Tertullian. But 
take this for granted, and admit your confounding 
Baptismal Regeneration with Baptismal Salvation 
to be no confounding ; then, as I have indubitably 
shown that the baptizing of little children, includ- 

[* Tertullian, and Montanism objected to Holy Scripture 
itself.] 



104 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

ing infants, did exist in the time of Tertullian, the 
doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, which, accord- 
ing to your statement, was developed between the 
time of Tertullian and Cyprian, could not have been 
the cause of Infant Baptism, unless the effect can 
precede the cause. Besides, it manifestly appears 
that the doctrine of Baptismal Eegeneration was 
held by Justin Martyr, in a distant region from 
Africa. How futile then have been your attempts 
to get rid of the thorough evidence of the full es- 
tablishment, not introduction, of Infant Baptism, 
in the time of Cyprian. You bring forward those 
ceremonies, and those opinions, which existed 
throughout the Christian world, and, therefore, could 
be no proof of the peculiar corruption of Africa, 
as instrumental in introducing Infant Baptism. 
One of these " corruptions " as you call it, was advo- 
cated by St. Paul, and even by our Blessed Saviour 
himself; and as for the ceremonies which accom- 
panied the performance of baptism, they were, as I 
have clearly shown, not considered as essential to 
the sacrament, and at the time of the Reformation, 
being supposed to have been, or likely to be, abused 
to purposes of superstition, they were omitted by 
the reformer. They are still retained by the Greek 
churches, and the Church of Rome. 

As I have clearly shown that Baptismal Regen- 
eration was held as early as the time of Justin 
Martyr, and by h im, forty years after the death of 
St. John, and in a part of the Christian Church dis- 
tant from Africa, to say nothing of St. Paul's hav- 
ing held it (Titus iii. 5), why did not this heresy, 
as you term it, generate Infant Baptism in the re- 



BAPTIZIiq-G OF IKFAKTS DEFENDED. 105 

gious in which Justin Martyr lived, or which he fre- 
quented ? [or did it ?] 

I come now to the subject of Infant Communion, 
as bearing on that of Infant Baptism. I think this 
is an argument of more force than any other you 
have produced. Suppose, then, you were able to 
show that Infant Communion was proved to have 
existed at as early a time, to have been as generally, 
universally practiced as Infant Baptism, and that 
the evidence of such existence were as clear, as full 
and perfect, as that of Infant Baptism, what would 
you prove by such showing ? That the evidence for 
Infant Baptism was false? By no means; you 
would only prove that Psedo-Baptists were inconsist- 
ent ; that while they receive and practice one in- 
stitution of our Redeemer, why do they not receive 
and practice both ? And certainly, if they were 
both maintained by the same authority, the question 
would be hard to answer. But even then, suppos- 
ing the arguments for both to be equal, we could say 
that assuredly it were better to observe one institu- 
tion of our Redeemer, than, to neglect both, as you 
do. But in truth, neither from antecedent proba- 
bility nor from Scripture, nor from antiquity, is there 
the same authority for the necessity of Infant Com- 
munion, that there is for Infant Baptism. There 
is no such ritual observance in the proselyte prac- 
tices of the Jews for Infant Communion as we have 
for Infant Baptism ; nor have we, as you suppose, 
any such analogy of necessity from the Jewish 
Church for Infant Communion as we have for In- 
fant Baptism. The Jews were expressly commanded 
to circumcise their children ; from analogy we have 
5 



106 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

one argument of fitness for baptizing little children, 
even infants, but in the case of the passover, mere 
infants could not partake of it; nor could they be 
brought from a distance without their mothers, and 
if their mothers were permitted even to partake of 
the passover, they were not required. (Ex. xxiii. 16, and 
Dent. xvi. 16.) As the latter has it, "three times a 
year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy 
God, in the place which he shall choose." The Par- 
thian s, Medes, and Elamites spoken of in the sec- 
ond chapter of the Acts do not appear to have 
brought either their wives or their children with 
them. Infant Communion has not the same author- 
ity from Scripture as Infant Baptism. The com- 
mand of our Saviour ro his Apostles to disciple all 
nations is general, it is no more directed to adults 
than to children, and the pretense from St. Mark 
that the actual exercise of faith must necessarily 
precede baptism, we have shown to be baseless. On 
the contrary, in the institution of the Lord's Supper, 
besides the accompanying circumstances in one case 
being so veiy different from what they are in the 
other, our Saviour requires of His disciples that they 
should celebrate and receive the Eucharist in re- 
membrance of Him, which mere children, infants 
especialh^, could not do ; and St. Paul, in 1 Cor. xi. 
28, enjoins on those to whom he is writing, that a 
man shonld examine himself, before he eat of that 
bread or drink of that cup. From 1 Cor. vii. 14, I 
trust I have made it plain that the baptism of chil- 
dren is certainly to be inferred ; but of their receiv- 
ing the Lord's Supper, there is no such indication ; 
to say nothing of any decided example. x\s regards 



baptizixct of ixpaxts defended. 10 7 

the testimony of antiquity, we find notliing of In- 
fant Communion before the time of Cyprian, if in- 
deed, the case mentioned was that of a mere infant, 
but noAvhere in Cyprian is it spoken of as necessary, 
nor is there anything of the kind till the time of 
Innocent the First, Bishop of Rome, and of St. Aus- 
tin, Bishop of Hippo, after whose time the practice 
spread in the Eastern, as well as the Western churches, 
and continued, with less or greater variation, for six 
hundred years ; but was gradually hxid aside, by the 
Western churches, and finally was denounced by a 
decree of the Council of Trent, Session xxi., Cap. 
4, canon 4, " That if any one shall say that the 
Communion of the Holy Eucharist is necessary for 
young children before they come to the years of 
discretion, let him be excommunicated." 

For my part, although I think the authority for 
Infant Communion and Infant Baptism, both from 
Scripture and antiquity, to be very diflPerent, yet 
were the part of the Catholic Church [to which I 
belong] to determine on renewing the practice of 
Infant Communion I should have no hesitation to 
engage in it, considering it a lawful result of the 
membership of the mystical body of Christ to 
which infants are admitted by their baptism. 

You very wisely cease to combat any testimo- 
nials which are brought forward after the time of 
Cyprian. I shall mention a few of them, closing 
with those of St. Austin and his opponent, Pelagius. 
For as the Church extended and the writers of it 
increased in numbers and importance, so have we 
overwhelming proof of the existence of Infant Bap- 
tism without one dissenting \oice from the times of 



108 BAPTIZING OF IXFA^'TS DEFEI^DED. 

the Apostles. I shall give quotations from some of 
these witnesses, till the time of St. Austin. For 
after the time of St.. Austin, or indeed, from "the 
beginning of the fourth century, to the time of the 
Reformation," it is acknowledged that Infant Bap- 
tism was firmly established. (Robert Hall, Vol. I. p. 
482.) 

I take Gregory Nazianzen, bishop first of Nazian- 
zum, then of Constantinople, A. D. 360, or 260 after 
the Apostles. "Hast thou an infant child ? Let not 
wickedness have the advantage of time ; let him be 
sanctified from his infancy, let him be dedicated 
from his cradle to the Spirit." Hall, Vol. I. chap. 10. 

Next we have St. Basil, bishop of Cesarsea, A. D. 
360, or 260 after St. John. " There is, therefore, 
a suitable time for other things: a proper time 
for sleep ; a proper time for watching ; a proper 
time for war; and a proper time for peace; but 
any time of one's life is proper for baptism." 

Further, from the historians Theodoret and Socra^ 
tes, we learn, that the young son (Socrates calls him 
the infant son) of Valens being ill, the emperor, 
at the solicitations of his wife, sent for St. Basil, to 
baptize him. This the bishop agreed to do, on the 
condition that he should be brought up in the 
true, the Catholic faith, and not in the Arian, which 
Valens, the emperor, professed. This the emperor 
refusing to do, the child was baptized by the Arian 
bishop. (See Socrates, book 4, ch. 26. ) From which 
account we may see that the practice of Infant Bap- 
tism was not only followed by St. Basil, but by the 
Arians; contrary to your quotation from Neander, 
supposing the quotation correct, " that Infant Bap- 



baptizi:n'g of infajs^ts defexded. 109 

tism was generally introduced into practice, and yet 
entered so rarely and with much difficulty into the 
church life " of the Eastern Church. 

Next follows St. Ambrose, A. D. 374 (274). 

"For unless any person be born again of water 
and of the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the 
kingdom of God." You see he excepts no person, 
not an infant, not one that is hindered by any una- 
voidable accident, but suppose that such have an unre- 
vealed freedom from punishment, I know not wheth- 
er they have the honor of the kingdom. From 
this passage from St. Ambrose, besides the proof of 
Infant Baptism, we find also that he, as indeed was 
the case with the Greek Church generally, by no 
means held the condemnation of unbaptized infants. 

St. John Chrysostom, A. D. 360 (280). 

" But our circumcision, I mean the grace of bap- 
tism, gives cure without pain, and procures to us a 
thousand benefits, and fills us with the grace of the 
Spirit, and it has no determinate time, as that had ; 
but one that is in the very beginning of his age, and 
one that is in the middle of it, or one that is in his 
old age, may receive this circumcisio7i made ivithout 
hands." (Hall, p. 182, Vol. I.) 

I come now to the time of St. Austin, bishop of 
Hippo, the latter part of the fourth century, and 
beginning of the fifth. That baptism prevailed we 
would say universally, you must necessarily ac- 
knowledge, to a very great extent. But you try to 
weaken the testimony St. Austin gives of the imi- 
versal prevalence, both of time and place, of Infant 
Baptism, by asserting, first, page 69, " Augustine did 
more than any one of his day for the prevalence of 



110 BAPTIZING OF IXFAXTS DEFENDED. 

Infant Baptism." I deny that St. Augustine (or 
Austin) did anything for the prevalence of Infant 
Baptism. Show us a single passage from his writings 
in which he endeavors to enforce the practice. He 
everywhere, as I shall presently show, takes it for 
granted that Infant Baptism prevailed always, every- 
where, and among all. You say on page 80, " That 
it," Infant Baptism, " was never sanctioned as a 
tenet of faith by any council till Augustine pro- 
cured it to be done in the Council of Carthage, A. 
D. 418." 

If you mean, by "sanctioned," acknowledged and 
approved, such assertion would be so very far from 
being correct, that you have admitted yourself that 
Infant Baptism was recognized in the first council 
of Carthage, A. D. 253 (153). If you mean by sanc- 
tioned, decreed, you might have gone further and 
declared that it was never decreed by any Council, 
and St. Austin employs this very absence of all 
conciliar decree to shoAV the apostolicity of the prac- 
tice : " That which the Universal Church maintains 
and was not instituted by councils, but always con- 
tinued, is most rightly believed to be delivered by 
the apostles' authority." •' The custom of our mother 
the Church, in baptizing little children, is by no 
means to be scorned, nor yet to be accounted super- 
fluous, nor at all to be believed, if there were not 
apostolical tradition for it." And speaking of 'the 
Pelagians, he says : " They grant that little children 
are to be baptized, because they cannot contradict 
the authority of the Universal Church, delivered by 
the Lord and His Apostles." (See Hammond's Baptiz- 
ing of Infants, § 45, B) . . . . I have inserted 



BAPTIZIITG OF lis^PAKTS DEFENDED. Ill 

the word little in Dr. Hammond's translation, as be- 
ing a more exact rendering of "parvulos/' I suppose 
you will hardly contend here, as you did in the pas- 
sage from Tertullian, that parvulos means children 
from six to ten years old. As to the assertion that St. 
Augustine borrowed his notion of the apostolicity of 
Infant Baptism from Origen, it is entirely without 
proof, or foundation. You next bring forward a 
number of names of persons baptized in adult age, 
whose parents were Christians at the time of the 
birth of these persons. By the first of these, whom 
with so s^'ange a blunder you call Gregory the 
Great, bishop of Eome, and who lived in the latter 
part of the sixth century, I suppose you mean 
Gregory of Nazianzum, afterwards bishop of Con- 
stantinople. The first of these, no doubt, was bap- 
tized after he was grown, but, that his parents were 
Christians when he was born, is by no means so 
certain. His biographer, Papebrochius, asserts the 
contrary ; and that he was born after his father was 
in orders, depends on a single word in a hymn. Of 
Basil and of Jerome, the far greater probability 
is, they were baptized in infancy. As regards Chry- 
sostom and Nectarius, whom by a strange mistake 
you have called l^estorius, there is no proof that 
their parents were Christians, at the time they were 
baptized. Of Ephrsem Syrus, I trust you will tell 
us from whence you obtain your information. I 
find nothing of it in the early historians, Socrates 
or Sozoman, nor do I find it in Cave, or Mosheim, or 
WaU. Of St. Augustine, we know full well from his 
own confession, that his father was a heathen at the 
time of his birth, and for many years after. 



112 BAPTIZIXG OF IXFAXTS DEFENDED. 

But to return to his testimony of the apostolic 
and subsequent universal practice of Infant Baptism. 

In the beginning of the fifth century, Pelagius, a 
monk of Britain, a man of great learning and a 
great traveler, together with his associate, Celestius, 
endeavored to propagate what, from him, was called 
the Pelagian heresy ; that is, the denial of what is 
called original sin, the denial of our moral corrup- 
tion from Adam's transgression. Among other 
opponents he met with, St. Augustine was the most 
strenuous and successful. St. Austin insists that 
there never was [any one] throughout th% Christian 
Church who did not baptize infants for the remis- 
sion of sins. Now, as this could not be for actual 
sins, it must be for original sin. To which Pelagius 
replied, that, without doubt, infants always and 
everywhere had been baptized, not for original sin, 
but for admission into the kingdom of heaven. 

It is not with the opinions of either of these men 
that I am at present concerned, whether baptism is 
given to infants either for the forgiveness of original 
sin, or not for that purpose ; my object is simply 
the testimony they both bear to the universality of 
Infant Baptism, both in time and place, especially 
the testimony of Pelagius, since he could not be 
possibly suspected of favoring the practice from 
any advantage to his cause. Could he have said it 
with any truth, how easy would it have been for 
him to reply : " You are mistaken in your premise ; 
the baptizing of infants does, indeed, exist in your 
corrupted churches of Northern Africa, but it does 
not exist at all in the churches of Britain ; it exists 
but partially and recently in the churches of Greece, 



> 



BAPTIZING OF IIS'FAKTS DEFENDED. 113 

or Syria, or Asia, or anywhere else that I, who have 
traveled in all the countries, could ever observe. 
As your premise is, therefore, false, your conclusion 
must be false." But Pelagius declares the very con- 
trar}'. He acknowledges that he never heard or 
read of any part of the Christian world in which 
infants were not baptized. Now, were these two 
opponents capable judges of the practice of Chris- 
tians ? Both were learned men. One, Pelagius, 
had been a great traveler. Were they not as com- 
petent to judge of what had been the practice of 
the Christian Church as certain moderns ? If I may 
express an opinion of German criticism, on which 
you so much depend, it is rather a facility of dis- 
covering difficulties in the way of established opin- 
ions than exactness in weighing probabilities to 
determine the truth. 

I am not sure, however, that I should not be wil- 
ling to rest the cause of PaBdo-Baptism on your 
confession of its existence in " Northern i\.frica " 
in the time of Cyprian, at the first Council of Car- 
thage of which we have any record. You labor, 
indeed, to make it appear, but certainly most fruit- 
lessly, that the action of that Council, respecting 
the baptizing of infants before they were eight days 
old, was the beginning of the practice of Infant 
Baptism. But the general question respecting the 
baptizing of little children (parvulorum), including 
infants, was not at all raised, it was hardly hinted at, 
except as plainly and fully implied, as an established 
practice, beyond a hint of dispute, and that in a coun- 
cil of sixty-six bishops. You say sixty ; but that is 
another of your ecclesiastical history mistakes. Was 



114 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

the district of country over which these sixty-six 
bishops presided the only part of the world, then, 
in which Infant Baptism existed ? And does this 
corrupted region of the advocates of celibacy, and 
of the use of oil and ointment in baptism, so dom- 
inate over the rest of the Christian world, so terrify 
or seduce the whole visible church of Christ, or 
pretended Christians, that not a single voice, not 
a word, not a syllable, by any person whatever for at 
least one thousand years, Catliolic or heretic, or 
schismatic. Pelagian, or Augustinian, was ever writ- 
ten or uttered against this most, according to your 
recent sect, un scriptural, ungodly practice of bap- 
tizing infants, so destructive to true piety, to the 
true interest of God's Holy Church, while such 
determined, I had almost said fierce, contests were 
raised about matters of, certainly in some cases, 
not superior, in others of decidedly inferior, impor- 
tance ? As to the first class, whether heretical bap- 
tism, if performed in due manner and with proper 
words, was or was not valid; of the latter kind, 
whether the paschal, or, as we call it, Easter feast, 
should be kept on the fourteenth day of March 
or April, or on the Sunday following. You will 
probably adduce Tertullian to the contrary, who 
recommends the delay of the baptizing of little 
children (parvulorum) ; but does Tertullian inti- 
mate in the least degree that the baptizing of little 
children, infants included as we say, not boys of 
ten years old, that the baptizing of infants is unlaw- 
ful, unscriptural ? Certainly not; for he recom- 
mends the same delay for young persons and widows. 



BAPTIZING OF IXFAXTS DEREXDED. 115 

I come now to yonr most abortive attempt to 
show the evils of Infant Baptism. I have already 
sufficiently, I hope, treated of the relation of the 
Jewish Church to the Christian, and how far they 
are to be considered identical. I do not think I 
need trouble myself or my readers any more with 
the subject. As to the ritualism, or rather, ritual- 
ists of the Episcopal Church, and the Low Church- 
men, as you term them, I trust there is nothing to 
be apprehended of the severance of which you write. 
At our last General Convention the two parties, if 
they can be called such, instead of being more 
widely separated, were drawn more closely together. 
We found we did not differ so much from one 
another as we had feared would be the case. There 
may be extremists here and there, but the Episcopal 
Church has gone through this trial before, and has 
come from it stronger than ever. A fertile soil will 
have weeds. 

In regard to ritualism, it is a word comprehendmg 
such a variety and extent of ceremonial, we must get 
a proper comprehension of its meaning before we un- 
dertake to condemn it. Ritualism is simply the use 
of rites and ceremonies in the worship of Almighty 
Grod, and may be very proper, or very improper. 

If it tend to produce greater honor and reverence 
toward the Majesty of Heaven, greater devotion in 
the heart of the worshiper, and at the same time 
is in accordance with the rules and usual practice 
of the Church, it cannot but be proper. On the 
contrary, if it tend to superstition, idolatry, or mere 
sensuousness, or be contrary to the rules or general 
and approved practice of the Church, it cannot but 



11 G BAPTIZING OF IXFANT3 DEFENDED. 

be improper and injurious. Every body of wor- 
shiping Christians must have a ritual of some sort 
and to some degree. Even the Quakers have some 
ceremonial, and the broad brim and straight-cut 
coat is to them in place of other ritual. You have, 
no doubt, some form or order for conducting Public 
Worship ; and not very long ago your place of wor- 
ship was hung in black to honor the burial of a 
man of great worth among you, and who had ren- 
dered great services to your communion. This 
looks to me somewhat ritualistic. I suppose if in 
the Episcopal Church it had oeen done [it might 
have been called so]. 

I come now to your second evil of Infant Baptism, 
the doctrine of Baptismal Eegeneration, which you 
call a heresy. 

As I hope I have sufficiently answered your alle- 
gations on this point, I might refer back to what I 
have already written, and give myself no further 
trouble. I choose, ex abundan ti, to add a few re- 
marks to what I have already answered. 

First. If Infant Baptism was the result of the 
doctrine of Baptismal Eegeneration, this doctrine 
must have been of very high antiquity, for St. Paul 
recognizes the baptizing of infants by telling the 
Jews that all their fathers were baptized unto Moses 
in the cloud and in the sea. The Jews, in the re- 
ception of proselytes, did baptize infants as well as 
adults, and, indeed, held, if not baptismal, sacra- 
mental regeneration. The baptizing of infants was, 
from traditional evidence, most probably practiced 
by St. John B.* And I trust I have made it suflficient- 

* Appendix A. 



BAPTIZIi^-G OF Ii^"FANTS DEFEis-DED. 117 

[y clear that, as there is nothing against it in Holy 
Scripture, so there are plain [arguments for it]. 

As to the baptism of infants, the doctrine of 
Baptismal Eegeneration had no more to do with its 
origin than with the origin of the baptism of adults. 
That the practice of baptizing infants was intro- 
duced by the docti'ine of Baptismal Regeneration is 
a mere hypothesis of your own, or of your denom- 
ination, asserted yery confidently, but not proved ; 
and an example to the contrary may be observed at 
this very time in the case of the Oampbellite Bap- 
tists, who are certainly as decided Anti-Paedo-Bap- 
tists as you can be, and yet hold firmly and tena- 
ciously the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, as 
I suppose you know. 

In regard to the doctrine itself, I need not repeat 
what I have already written of the view which the 
Episcopal Church takes of it. Comparing the article 
with the formularies of her faith, I can most suc- 
cessfully urge that the doctrine of the connection 
of baptism with regeneration is certainly taught in 
Holy Scripture, Avas certainly held by all antiquity, 
and is received by very far, indeed, the greater part 
of the Christian world at the present day. That it 
is [contained in Jno. iii. 5, as held always, till] Cal- 
vin, or, perhaps, as I stated, before him, Wickliffe 
endeavored to introduce a different interpretation. 
So, again, Titus iii. 5, was universally interpreted 
of baptism, and is so even by Calvin, in hu com- 
ment on the passage, and is the generally received 
interpretation at this day. That the doctrine of 
the connection of baptism with regeneration was 
held by the ancient Church is most certain, for a 



118 BAPTIZIXG OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

single example to the contrary cannot be found. 
Beginning with Justin Martyr, forty years after the 
death of St. John, there is not a single exception, in 
all antiquity, of this doctrine being held, that who- 
soever was spoken of as regenerate had been bap- 
tized ; whosoever had not been baptized was not 
called or considered regenerate. As, for instance, a 
godly Quaker, if such a person was ever found in 
antiquity, would not [have been] called or con- 
sidered regenerate, a godly baptized person would 
[have been]. As respects the doctrine at present, 
you contend that it is held by almost all, if not by 
all, Christian bodies except yourselves ; so that, if 
the rule of St. Vincent, " Quod semper, quod uhique, 
quod ab omnihus^^ that which was received or 
practiced at all times, in all places, and by all per- 
sons, must be true, if applicable on any occasion, 
must be applicable in this instance. 

[On page 92, you say that there cannot be pro- 
duced any Baptist work that " teaches that sins are 
pardoned in baptism, or souls regenerated by this 
ordinance." Whether any Baptist writing ever 
taught this or not, the question is, does Holy Scrip- 
ture teach that baptism is the appointed sign of the 
forgiveness of sins, so that, according to it, the cer- 
tification of forgiveness of sins is said to be given 
in baptism ? Vide Acts ii. 38, xxii. 16, and Eph. v. 
26. And it cannot be doubted that all persons ful- 
filling what is required of them by the Gospel have 
their sins forgiven in baptism. As to the applica- 
tion of the word regeneration, that has been dis- 
cussed above. 

As to •' administering the Lord's Supper, or per- 



BAPTIZING OF IXFAXTS DEFENDED. 119 

forming the act of baptism for the dying," whether 
it '^disturbs their peace," or comforts them, depends 
ipon their condition and state of mind. If the 
sick person's faculties are clear, and his mind dis- 
posed to testify his faith by Christ's appointed way, 
in fellowship with the Church, represented by the 
few members gathered by his bedside, there can be 
no good reason to refuse him his desire so to do. 
In regard to the Lord's Supper, our Church requires 
two persons, at the least, to partake with the sick 
person ; and that, with the minister, makes a little 
church. But if his condition or circumstances pre- 
vent the communion, "if he do truly repent him of 
his sins, and steadfastly believe that Jesus Christ 
hath suffered death upon the cross for him, and shed 
His blood for his redemption, earnestly remembering 
the benefits he hath thereby, and giving him hearty 
thanks therefor, he doth eat and drink the Body 
and Blood of our Saviour Christ profitably to his 
soul's health, although he do not receive the sacra- 
ment with his mouth.'^ 

Besides, if for a dying person to receive a sacra- 
ment, when his condition allows it, does not add to 
his comfort, or his own or others' assurance of his 
faith, why does it add anything to a well man's as- 
surance ? And why is the decorous, and solemn, and 
orderly, and devout administration of a sacrament 
any more disturbing to the peace, than the very ex- 
citing prayers, and exhortations, and singings, that 
are sometimes thought necessary by the bedsides of 
the dying ? 

When the very name " Baptist," wliich the Anti- 
Paedo-Baptists adopt, is taken from this sacrament, 



120 BAPTIZING OF INFAXTS DEFENDED. 

it seems harsli that you should say that those who 
think you make too much of baptism utter a " silly 
slander." (P. 93.) 

As to Immersion, that question is not under dis- 
cussion now. 

I come now to take notice of the third "evil," that 
" Infant Baptism corrupts the Church," etc. I deny 
this ; first, because it has been proved above that it 
is scriptural, and therefore, cannot have this tend- 
ency. Its tendency is to preserve the Christian 
people from lapsing into infidelity. The progress 
of " Baptist principles," if you be right as to their ex- 
tent, is lamentable, for it is an encouragement to 
that scorn of infancy, and childhood, and of the ad- 
vantages of their innocency, which our Saviour re- 
buked. If the progress of Baptist principles has led 
a great number of Paedo-Baptists in various denom- 
inations to treat their children as if they had never 
been baptized, the greater pity that their faith has 
become so weak, and their negligence so great. The 
departure of many, who have been baptized in in- 
fancy, into wicked ways, no more proves that infants 
ought not to be baptized, than the wicked behavior 
of so many baptized in adult age, proves that they 
ought not to have been baptized, or that in every 
such case their baptism ought to be repeated. 
Ought it to le repeated f Please answer. The corrup- 
tions you speak of cannot be proved to be connected 
with the Baptism of Infants; but can be traced 
more easily to other causes. 

As to the fourth charge, of the evil of " the confu- 
sion produced among the adherents " of the Bap- 
tism of Infants. There is no confusion in the P. E. 



BAPTIZIiSTG OF INEANTS DEFENDED. 121 

Cliurch if the exposition of Doctrine in our stand- 
ards is considered, as set forth by authority of the 
Church, according to Holy Scripture. What con- 
fusion exists otherwise, is the effect of loose, or 
ill-educated thinking. 

The fifth evil charged is that of striking at " the 
root of religious liberty." Since we are now endeav- 
oring to arrive at the truth, may not the speaking of 
that which is ^' dear to an American heart," have too 
much of an ad captandam effect ? I have no doubt 
that the truth of the Holy Scripture is the only thing 
that can preserve this nation of ours, as it has 
been Bible truth that has been the preservation and 
glory of the British people, the most honored of 
God, in the whole history of the world, excepting 
Israel. The Bible and the Church have not ceased 
to be dear to the majority of Englishmen; and since 
the time of the Eeformation of the Church, and of 
its giving to others, and to you, the translated Bible, 
from being three millions, the English-speak- 
ing people have increased to ninety millions. Your 
objection to baptizing an infant and instructing it 
in the "tenets" of that Church, is answered thus: 
First, the only difficulty consists in the differences of 
different denominations. Those differences are not 
owing to baptism, but to the variances of men's 
minds, which are also found among Baptists. The 
intended effect of baptism is to introduce them into 
the school of Christ, the Church (universal), especi- 
ally to faith in the doctrine of Eedemption through 
Christ, expressed by faith in the Holy Trinity. 

What is done for the child is done for its good, 
and will be for its good, unless he ungratefully and 
6 



122 BAPTIZING OF INFAin:S DEFENDED. 

sinfully reject that good, and refuse to believe that 
truth. God has given in charge to parents, and law- 
ful guardians, to bring up children "in the nurture 
and admonition of the Lord." Taking your atti- 
tude of mind on this subject, the infidel would have 
as good a right to complain of the violation of lib- 
erty ; because, before the child can weigh and choose 
his opinions, we — i. e., you and we — put into the 
child's mind notions concerning God and Christ, 
and miracles, and prophecies, and grace ; thus giving 
him, the infidel, much trouble to undo it all. But we 
reply, God has constituted the relations of life for 
this purpose; and there is a truth of God that has 
been transmitted successively, contained fully in the 
Bible ; and by God's blessing we will continue to be 
beforehand with the devil, and wickedness, and infi- 
dels. For true freedom is the right to our own, to 
what God has given us. 

You show no express command from Holy Scrip- 
ture for believers (those professing faith) only, to 
be baptized ; you assume it and assert it. The only 
express command to baptize is Matt, xxviii. 19. Your 
other texts are statements of the conditions of a 
covenanted title to, or promise of salvation, of which 
baptism is made one. 

The sixth charge of evil is, that the baptizing of 
infants rests upon tradition and not Scripture, and 
therefore, assimilates us to Romanists. Evidence has 
'•' demonstrated " that the extending, or not refusing, 
the ordinance to infants does '' find support in the 
Bible.'' Men like Bunsen, Stovel, etc., may have their 
vagaries, weaknesses, and theories, but the truth and 
the testimony of the Church to the facts that the Bible 



BAPTIZIXG OF INFAXTS DEFENDED. 123 

was given of God through the Apostles and Evange- 
lists, and that Baptism of Infants was ever held not 
to be forbidden by Holy Scripture and the Apostles, 
but on the contrary that they were included, of course 
will be regarded more than what these objectors say. 

As to the way the Rev. Mr. Crogan, and the Eo- 
manists, have of arguing, we do not care a fig for it. 
It seems a sophistical attempt of theirs, tried also 
in regard to the doctrine of the Trinity, and many 
other points, to dislodge us from the strong gronnd 
of Scripture. It is an ingenious, perhaps artful, 
thing; but we care nothing for it. 

We gave you the translation of the Bible. Ac- 
cording to the Baptist theory, you are the only and 
sole visible Church on earth. For only baptized 
persons are in the visible Church — and you claim to 
be the only baptized persons, and excommunicate 
all others (I am only stating, not finding fault). 
Now, contemplating the whole so-called Christian 
world, and considering the small proportion of you 
as yet, and remembering that for the first thousand 
years at least, you are here challenged to produce an 
author or writer, of any hind, that alludes to a Church 
organized and constituted on the present " Baptist 
principles," there seems great difficulty in accepting 
your theory. But I put this point : you being 
the only visible Church of Christ, how comes it to 
pass that you have not originally given to, or pre- 
served for the world, the Holy Scriptures, to do 
which certainly is one office of the Church, but 
have received them, both in the Hebrew and Creek 
and in translation, originally and solely, as I think, 
from the Paedo-Baptist body, who, according to your 



124 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

theory, are not in the Church at all ? God's only 
Church visible, absolutely, and solely, as far as can 
be made to appear, dependent for the Word of Life 
upon those who are not in it ! 

As to what you maintain to be facts in your " con- 
clusion." It is a fact, that receiving a child into 
Christ's fold, the Church, the Kingdom of God on 
earth, by baptism, does promote its preservation 
from infidelity and is the proper beginning, for it, of 
a life of piety. 

Dr. F.Wilson's testimony (p. 113), and that which 
you tell us of the Baptist Sunday-school in Raleigh, 
only illustrates this principle, viz., that a sect strug- 
gling to prove its theory practically, always makes 
extraordinary exertions for some time, and active 
measures have their effect. AVhile it has always been 
the peril of those whose minds are poised level on the 
eminence of truth, not shaken much by fanaticism or 
the excitement of opposition, that they may subside 
into self-complacency and negligence, or worse. 

As to the second fact, " that Infant Baptism is," 
(as you think), "rapidly decreasing in this country ;" 
that does not touch the matter of its truth, and 
right. Falling in with this way of looking at the 
subject, I might say that many persons think that 
the American character is deo^eneratino^. and tliat ra- 
tionalism and looseness of moral principle, and 
skepticism, and diminished intellectual power, are 
becoming more noticeable in the nation. All this 
sort of talk is coiijectnre and not argument; and 
assumes alleged effects to be from alleged causes. 

As to the " third fact." There are all sorts of un- 
instructed and crotchetv minds. 



BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 125 

As to the " fourth fact ; " that nearly every one of 
your witnesses is a Psedo-Baptist. First, you have 
a motive, I might think, for managing it so. But 
the truth I think to be, that only lately have you 
had any men of considerable pretensions to learning 
or authority to quote from, and must resort in a 
great measure to the peculiar things said by some 
of our singular men. 

May our Baptist brethren go on in the learning 
both of Scripture and of history, and with know- 
ledge and love we shall come to agree — you with us. 

As to the "fifth fact," that those who do not be- 
lieve in Infant Baptism, and yet remain with Psedo- 
Baptist Churches, are false to God and His truth. 
This seems to be not so much of the nature of a 
''fact" — for you cannot know the whole motives 
and convictions of any mind, — as it is a rash and un- 
charitable accusation. Eash, because you seem not 
to consider that this embarrassment about abandon- 
ing opinions once held, and associations previously 
formed, is not peculiar to those who have been un- 
settled in their views of baptism ; but it happens to 
many men, on many other subjects, and delay and 
study, with Divine aid, may be a means of saving 
from error and wrong-headedness, as often as of 
keeping in error ; uncharitable, seemingly, because 
your words are calculated, by an awful accusation, 
to frighten some, who take their want of strong and 
instructed convictions for positive disbelief, to sur- 
render at once. At the worst, your proposition ought 
to have been expressed, " are false to their own con- 
victions or opinions concerning God and His truth." 
They might be false to His truth after they had 



126 BAPTIZING OF INFANTS DEFENDED. 

yielded to your arguments, and any errorist might 
speak as you do, of any whom he found unsettled in 
their previous opinions, and slow to adopt his. Even 
those who think themselves well informed of Scrip- 
tural and ancient truth, ought not to judge rashly 
or uncharitably, otherwise I might say that many, 
who, after studying Holy Scripture "and ancient 
authors, cannot but perceive the Scripturalness and 
Apostolicity of the P. E. Church, would come over 
but that, etc. 

May God cause the truth to appear, and may the 
love of Christ the Lord enable us to love the truth 
best, and to love one another. K. H. M.l 



APPENDIX. 



The fact tliat the " Christians of St. Jolin," or "Mendai 
Taliia," baptized infants by affusion bas some significance in 
sbowing the probability that infants were baptized by St. 
John Baptist ; because Eastern customs, once formed, 
are not so liable to change as ours. According to the book 
of Ignatius-a-Jesu (1652), who visited them, this people, 
claiming origin from John Baptist, and numbering about 
25,000, dwelt at Bassora, on the Euphrates, and practiced 
the baptism of infants, children in the arms, by sprinkling 
and affusion three times, and afterwards plunging three times 
in the water, with words said over them by the minister 
that were altogether defective, from a want of Scriptural or 
Gospel form. They baptized on the Lord's day only, annu- 
ally, and only in a flowing river, etc., etc. Tavernier, in his 
book (1810), confirms this. 

(l!) 

B. 

[Instead of the modern phrase "Member of the Church," 
we find in the New Testament the term "hagios," i. e., 
" saint," used as well for children as for older persons. The 
distinction of children and adults in regard to relations to 
Grod in the Church, seems only modern, and not found at all 
in the phraseology of Scripture.] 



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